Only one verse for you today, but packed with wonderful meaning from our Lord’s Word, the Bible. The Prophet Micah is encouraging his people Israel that God will have compassion on them once ‘again’. God’s anger will not last forever–as a matter of fact He is a long-suffering and patient God(now that’s for next time!). He will ‘again’ have compassion on His people, then and now. That’s for us, for me and you! We’re included. And now comes even more good news–how could there be more? But there is! Micah tells us that God ‘will tread our sins underfoot.’ He won’t point His finger at us in accusation. He won’t hold our sins over our heads or shove them in our faces. No, He’ll trample them underfoot, blot them out, grind them into the tiny grains of sand so that it will be impossible to ever find them again. I remember losing a good watch while down the shore in New Jersey, at the beach. Can’t dredge up the brand now but it was not a Timex and certainly not a Rolex! But then it hit me…where’s my watch? In a panic, running back to where I had been at the beach or so I thought, trying to find that expensive watch. Gone…gone…gone. That’s the bad news. The good news is that our sins when confessed to God, covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, realizing how damaging our sins have been to us, others and of course God Himself–are ‘tread underfoot’. Thank God today…our sins, under His foot. Gone…gone…gone. Thank God! But Micah tells us more, even better news. God ‘hurls our iniquities into the depths of the sea’. When I just typed this, I realized that I left out the word ‘all’ from the Bible verse. It reads– ‘hurls all our iniquities into the depths of the sea’. All of them. Not just the ‘white lies’ or the ones we think rather harmless and therefore easy for God to forgive. No, all of them. Even the ones we have never shared with anyone. The ones that shame us even to this day. All of them, He promises. And where does He hurl them? Into the depths, the deepest part of the seas and oceans. That’s pretty deep. I remember being on a cruise ship in the Caribbean approaching some tropical island we were going to dock at for the day. Many of us were out on deck to see this beautiful and colorful island in the sun. The woman next to me, who told me she was a lawyer from Washington DC, had a marvelous camera in her hand that looked real pricey, when digital cameras first came out with all those bells and whistles. People were packed in tight on those decks, all squeezed in like sardines. And more and more passengers kept pushing and shoving. You guessed it…this poor woman standing next to me was shoved by someone behind her and that camera went flying out of her hands over the railing straight into the depths of the sea, right into Davy Jones’ Locker never to be seen again. That’s the bad news. The good news is that our sins, in God’s hands, not pushed or shoved, but willingly, are tossed into the depths of the sea. Glub…glub…glub…gone! Let me recommend to myself first of all and then to you as well—leave them there. God has put up a ‘no swimming’ sign and a ‘no fishing’ sign right where they went down. Thank God…can you feel the release and relief God wants us to have? Can you? Can I?