East to West

A few years ago I was blessed with an invite to spend a night at Martha’s Vineyard with some girlfriends. As I was enjoying the ferry ride over to the island, I was reminded just how far away from home I was. I am originally from the West Coast, and now live about 3000 miles from there on the East Coast. The two oceans are different. The color is not the same. One is warmer than the other and to me, they just look different. As I was thinking about this, I realized just how from home I was, and it dawned on me that I have literally moved from one ocean to the other, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Wow, I moved clear across the country, and on top of that, I moved from the Canadian West Coast to the American East Coast. I am a long way from home.

While I was chewing on the distance between me and my childhood memories, the Lord gently whispered in my ear “as far as the East is from the West, that’s how far I have moved your mistakes from Me.” At that moment the distance became even greater.

I don’t know how many times I have heard the verse in Psalm 103:12 that says “as far as the East is from the West, so far has He moved our transgression from us”, and to be honest I’ve never really thought much about it. I know that the East and West are opposites and that there is much space between them. But did you know that the distance between North and South is finite, while the distance between East and West is infinite? Think about it.

Picture a globe. If you were to travel north, you could only go so far and then you would be traveling south. The same thing if you were going south, you would eventually be going north. But, if you were to head east or west, you could keep going in that direction forever. There is no end. It is a distance that cannot be measured.

That is how far God has moved our transgressions from us.

...by Paulette Toews

...by Paulette Toews