Let Christ Own Our Mistakes

We often talk about the importance of owning our mistakes. On the one hand, it is important to have a clear view of our agency and the responsibility that we have over our actions. On the other hand, it is important to acknowledge that we don't actually own our mistakes. Christ owns our mistakes. He paid for them with His blood and His sweat and His tears and His infinite suffering. As the owner of our mistakes, He wants us to go and sin no more. He wants us to make amends and restitution wherever possible. He wants us to come unto Him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit and repent of our mistakes and take upon us His grace and His saving power. What He does not want us to do is try to steal back ownership of our mistakes from Him. He paid an infinite price for our mistakes and besides holds the worth of our souls as even higher than that. He does not want us to suffer even as He did. Out of love and compassion and friendship, He paid the price for our sins so we don't have to. He has felt all of the pain and misery and shame that we have ever or will ever feel, so stubbornly and pridefully insisting that we continue to beat ourselves up for our mistakes does not spare the Savior even a single drop of blood but merely adds to it. He Who was without sin chose not to cast the first stone, nor does He condemn us and so neither should we be condemning nor casting stones at ourselves. Instead we should respect the true owner of our mistakes and repent and forsake our sins - forsake, both in the sense of ceasing to commit those sins and in the sense of giving up all claims to ownership or ultimate responsibility over our sins. We can and should feel remorse for the harm we have caused, but it is neither expected nor possible to pay the full, infinite price for our sins. We can and should do everything we can to make things right when we have erred, but we must accept that only the Savior can ultimately repair the full extent of the damage we've done and make things not just as good but better than they were. Ultimately, we do not own our mistakes. All we can do is with utmost humility and gratitude waste and wear out our lives in service of the One who does own our mistakes, not because He demands it but because we are trying to love Him with even the tiniest fraction of the Love with which He showers us.