Beyond the Greatest Depths

There are many days when I wish I could go back and unsay a word, undo a deed, or erase a moment that plays again and again in my memory. Maybe you know that feeling—that sharp pang of regret when one of your wrongs surfaces out of nowhere to trouble you.

Many of us carry past wrongs that feel like they will follow us for the rest of our lives. There are things we said, choices we made, and lines we crossed that still burn when we remember them. Sometimes, we quietly wonder if God can truly forgive us for all of it.

We might wish we could just dig a hole and bury those wrongs forever—but deep down, we know that would never be enough. Perhaps we could bury them deep in the sea, in the vast, hidden depths where countless shipwrecks lie.

The tragic story of the Titanic has fascinated the world for more than 100 years. When oceanographer Robert Ballard revealed the ghostly images of the ship’s broken hull on the ocean floor in 1985, millions were captivated by the stark, almost otherworldly photos.

Lying 2 1/2 miles beneath the surface, the Titanic’s grave is a place almost no one has ever visited—a piece of history lost to darkness, suddenly illuminated. It’s a haunting reminder of how deeply some things can be buried, yet never quite forgotten.

But even the Titanic’s resting place is not the deepest. Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is nearly 7 miles straight down, but not nearly deep enough.

We need far more distance. The Moon is about 239,000 miles away, but it’s almost always visible. So what if we could send our sin even farther? Proxima Centauri, the next closest star beyond our Sun, is about 25 trillion miles away—over 100 million times the distance from Earth to the Moon.

With each new distance, we push the idea of “far away” to its limit. But the miracle of grace isn’t how far we could send our wrongs, but how far God has already removed them from us.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12)

God’s mercy stretches beyond any distance we can imagine. His forgiveness covers every past, every regret. Salvation is a free gift—all we have to do is trust in what Jesus has already done. There’s nothing left for us to erase or bury—he has already carried it all away.

. . . and that’s what I know today.