Our forgetful God

I drove down to the shops for some last minute Christmas shopping today. The weather was dreadful, the traffic heavy and I had to take a detour. In an attempt to get back on the right road I took an unfamiliar turning and was surprised to recognise where I was.

Last summer I had a row with my wife and girls. Boiling with anger I went for a run and had taken the same route as I took this morning. I can remember being there, I can remember being very angry, almost the angriest I can ever remember being, but for the life of me I can't remember what I was angry about.*  What ever it was about, and it seemed important enough at the time, has long since been swallowed up in the deep, loving relationship I have with my wife; God's greatest gift to me after salvation.

I wonder if this is what it's like for God. Many Christians believe that, when God forgives our sins he also forgets them. The bible tells us that love doesn't keep a record of wrongs (1Corinthians 13:5) and, in Jeremiah, the Lord says,

 "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah 31:34). 

How an all knowing God might forget  anything is a mystery (presumably it is an act of his own will). I've always seen this forgetting by God in dry theological terms. How can God forget anything? Today I saw it in personal ones. Why would God want to remember the forgiven sins of those he loves?

*As I remember it, I was wholly in the right and everybody else wholly in the wrong, but my judgement on these things isn't perfect.