Backspace

I'm a collector of ordinary junk.  Other people might look at the stuff I would be apt to pick up and either throw it away or completely ignore it altogether.  I'm not talking about real trash, necessarily.  For instance, I wouldn't keep a banana peel.  On the other hand, some time ago, I asked the folks in our maintenance department if they had an old fire alarm pulls.  They had one and gave it to me.  It sits in my bookcase.  Why?  I guess it's the symbolism more anything.  It's an oddity, and yet when I see it, it makes me stop and think.

In light of this confessed oddity, I was walking down one of our sidewalks and found a key from a computer keyboard.  It was the backspace button.  I was struck by the significance of that one little button.  What a difference it makes on the computer keyboard.  I use it often.  See, I just used it.  You didn't notice it, but I used it.  That's the beauty of the backspace key.  You can back up, restart, and get it right the second, third, fourth, fifth, or hundredth time.  No one will know the difference.  (Again, I just hit that backspace key and you have no idea where or why.)  Of course, I know I hit it.  I know when I need to.  I also quickly forget how many times I do it.  It's second nature by now. Sometimes whole sentences disappear and sometimes it's just a letter or two.  But, it's gone.  Of course, you can resurrect it, unless you save your document.  Once saved, all of those "edits" are gone.  What you finally wrote is the finished document, at least the latest version.  The backspace.  Nice invention.

Think about that for a minute.  If only we could have the backspace installed on the keyboard of our lives.  "Oops, I didn't mean to say that."  Backspace, backspace, backspace.  Cleaned up.  Everything cleaned up.  Self-edited, yes.  But, the finished product is so much better.  So much more refined.  Even spiritually.  There are some things in my past that I wish I could "backspace" away.  Delete. Gone.  Edited out.  Cleaned up.  Here's the neat thing.  God has the backspace button. He says that our sins are removed away from us "as far as the east is from the west... When the wind passes over it, it is no more; and its place acknowledges it no longer." (Ps. 103:12, 16)  In other words, in His eyes, they don't exist.  They're gone.  Deleted.  Edited out.  Cleaned up.  And, what's more, He now views us as "perfect".  But, that's another post at another time.

That backspace button I found on the sidewalk sets in front of me everyday.  I see it now, just a foot away from my keyboard as I type this.  Every time I see it, I'm reminded of the significance of the backspace.  The opportunity to edit.  For now, I am so thankful for the backspace button.