Illustration by Eiko Ojala
When you meet someone new, there’s a good chance they’ll ask about how you ended up “here,” in the particular city the two of you share. Given the fact that there are more than 108,000 cities in this country, new friends are naturally curious about how you picked this one. And why.
It’s likely, too, that at some point neighbors will want to hear about how you and your spouse got together. There are, after all, roughly 164 million men in the country and 167 million women. How is it that you “just so happened” to end up with him? Or her?
Such questions prompt us to think about how, step-by-providential-step, over the course of our entire lives, God has led us to places and people, and to careers, hobbies, and volunteer opportunities that seem tailor-made for us. We might remember how, by His grace and according to His plan, we’ve made special friends and pleasant acquaintances; how we’ve pursued our unique interests, even as they have changed over time. And how, in every case, God orchestrated thousands — more likely millions or even billions — of contingent factors.
We think along the same lines when we gather with friends and family for the holidays. A time comes, maybe at dinner or late at night after the day has settled down, when we take turns asking, “Do you remember the time …?” There’s warmth in these conversations, and deep gladness, too.
It happens at anniversaries — of marriages, births, special events, and even of a denomination’s founding. Thoughts of the past remind us how blessed we are and how faithful God has been.
Though these conversations tend to the wistful side, some are more serious. They recall the turning points in our lives — the people, places, and events that made us who we are and that have ushered us into our current, personal circumstances. These aren’t the abstract principles that apply to everyone, but the things that are unique to us; that got us to this place, this job, this church, this neighborhood.
For each of us, there are milestones we must hold dear. Which is why God tells us repeatedly, in the Old Testament and the New, to take time to remember. It’s why He gives us examples and illustrations that reveal how good it is — for our faith, health, and well-being — to recall how He has shaped and guided our lives.
How Could You Forget That?
We’re not particularly good at it. It often seems as though the Old Testament is mostly the story of Israel’s chronic amnesia. Page after page, every time life took a disturbing turn, it’s as if the Israelites forgot every miraculous thing God had ever done for them. When faced with uncertainty or stricken by doubt, they routinely lost sight of who they were and what it meant to be God’s chosen people.
We read their story today and with flawless hindsight are dumbfounded by it: How is it possible, for example, that when Moses took a few days on Mount Sinai they forgot every act of their all-powerful God, and hurried to forge a man-made calf to replace him? How does someone dismiss the fact that God once turned the Nile into blood? Or that Aaron once struck the dust of the ground and lice came upon men and animals? Or that Moses, when he stretched out his hand toward the sky, brought darkness over Egypt such that no one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days?
For each of us, there are milestones we must hold dear. Which is why God tells us repeatedly, in the Old Testament and the New, to take time to remember.
How do you overlook the parting of the Red Sea? Or ignore the appearance of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? How is it possible for people — and an entire nation — to forget the manna, meat, and water provided by God at a time and in a way that was meant to be remembered?
And yet, at every anxious turn, they neglected it all and acted as though God had deserted them. How could anybody be so dull? As writer Anne Kerhoulas aptly puts it, “How do you forget a pillar of fire at night?”
One story after another, we see the consequences of Israel’s feeble powers of recollection. And yet we, like them, are prone to forget and minimize and even doubt the most remarkable things that God has done for us.
We Remember Best When We Remember God’s Story
Like ancient Israel, we have been woven into the story of God’s redemption. Individually, as churches, and even as a denomination, we play a God-given part in the unfolding drama — each of us in a different scene and setting: in our homes and churches, our cities and workplaces, our schools, and our spheres of influence.
In all these places and in our various roles, we advance the subplots of the overarching story. And most of the time, we do it consciously.
We know we’re God’s image, for example, and that we’re to hallow His name and rejoice in His presence, everywhere and all the time. We thereby provide a glimpse of what life is like in Christ’s coming kingdom.
We’re mindful of being ambassadors of Christ’s kingdom, and therefore — in ways that mystify our friends — we love our neighbors and our enemies too. Because that’s the ethos that pervades the world to come.
We strive to be faithful and loving spouses because we understand the meaning and symbolism of marriage and sex, and we know what they say about the character of a Christ-redeemed culture.
We understand the fullness of God, and therefore, as we eagerly await the day when every tribe and tongue will stand before the same throne, we delight in the differences between our Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic neighbors.
Our values align with those of Christ, and so we understand that money is the means to worthwhile ends, but never an end unto itself.
Because we’ve been given a glimpse of the peace and prosperity that’s to come, we grasp the reality that work, play, reading, watching TV — every aspect of everything we do — is to foreshadow the reality that Christ came and will come again to make all these things new.
But like ancient Israel, we sometimes forget the big-picture story — and forget that it’s our story, too. When we do, Kerhoulas points out, we inevitably ease into another story; one that has set its sights on false gods, whose heroes are self-centered, and whose characters find their identities not in Christ, or in His story, or in the hope of His coming kingdom — but in money, power, sex, and the multitude of things this world offers. In other words, we ease into a story that can’t come to a happy end.
We, then, like ancient Israel, must “take care, lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, of the house of slavery” (Deuteronomy 6:12). It is why we must “Remember how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness” (Deuteronomy 9:7). We, too, must “Remember the Sabbath day” (Exodus 20:8), and “… the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments he has uttered” (1 Chronicles 16:12).
When we remember, we recalibrate our lives; we bring ourselves back into God’s story, back to the truth of His Word, back to the reality that He chose us and made us participants in His plan for this world’s redemption.
Remembering Revives Hope
When we look back, we see what God has done, not only for the nation of Israel, but for Abraham, Daniel, David, and Moses, too. We’re reminded of Christ’s miracles — for the woman with an “issue of blood,” the man who was born blind, the centurion’s servant, the 5,000 who were fed with a just a few fish, and for Lazarus and his sisters.
We read and reread the psalms because they remind us of God’s presence with His people. Take Psalm 77:11 for example: “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.”
The prophets, too, are forever telling and retelling tales of His faithfulness. In Isaiah 44:21-22, for instance, the prophet writes, “Remember these things, Jacob, for you, Israel, are my servant. I have made you; you are my servant; Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”
The gospels show us tangibly and in the lives of ordinary people, that Christ did for a fact come “to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to restore sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).
We flip through our own journals and scrapbooks and see him at work in our lives, too — providing a much-needed job, healing us and our loved ones, comforting us, leading us in unexpected ways and into delightful new circumstances. We see him at work in the lives of friends, neighbors, and colleagues — in real time and in familiar places — and we can’t help but marvel.
When we feel alone or abandoned, such memories empower us to move forward in faith and with confidence. When we’re overwhelmed by circumstances we can’t control, or when we’re afraid and mired in doubt, our stories and Israel’s stories, and the gospel stories remind us of who God is and what He’s like; and they inspire us once again to envision our hoped-for future.
God’s Practical Strategies
We are more like the wandering Israelites than we care to imagine. We see it clearly in Deuteronomy, where Israel stands at the edge of Canaan, at the end of their 40-year journey. Moses is near the end of his life and the thing he wants most is for these people — his people — to remember their story. In Deuteronomy 4:9 he pleads with them: “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.”
When we remember, we recalibrate our lives; we bring ourselves back to the truth of His Word, back to the reality that He chose us and made us participants in His plan for this world’s redemption.
Moses also knows how much they’ll relish the good life that God’s about to give them. “You shall eat and be full,” he tells them, “And you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you.” But Moses also knows that such comfort carries risks. “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God,” he adds. He then explicitly warns them, “When you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your … silver and gold is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Deuteronomy 8:12-14).
He’s telling them, and us — people who live well and lack for so little — that trouble looms when we forget our story. And the fact is, we all forget. For us, as for the ancient Israelites, information is hard to hold onto. To remember, says modern-day psychology professor Faria Sana, we must “put effort into it and concentrate and engage in certain strategies.”
That is surely why God, through Moses, gives the Israelites three foolproof tactics. He tells them to, “Remember the LORD your God,” to “Remember what God has done for you,” and “that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand” (5:15).
Biola University professor David Horner summarizes it this way: “Remember who you are and whose you are. [Remember] your story.”
But the truth remains, we’re finite creatures who are burdened with busy lives and short attention spans. We need a daily recap, our own version of “Previously in Bob’s life” to bring our dormant memories back to the surface, because we now know, Sana explains, that “memory is all associations.”
God helps us there, too. In Psalm 111:2 we read, “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.” When we delight in something, we pause and take notice. We examine it and treasure it, Horner says, in the same way you might ponder a photo of your child’s first bike ride; you gaze at it in wonder.
In verse 3 the psalmist goes on, explaining that God is gracious and merciful. In verses 7 and 8 he tells us that His precepts (His Word) are trustworthy and have been established for eternity. And in verse 9 he adds that He has sent redemption to His people. In other words, Horner argues, everything God says and does, helps us retrieve buried memories. “He has caused [or made] His works to be remembered” (Psalm 111:4).
Perhaps we need to build a kind of communion into our daily lives. When we come to the Lord’s Table, we come as a body of believers, and we come to remember. “And he took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me’” (Luke 22:19).
“At this supper,” Kerhoulas writes, “Jesus inaugurated the new covenant. His body and His blood would be the sacrifice poured out for the atonement of others. Do this in remembrance of me. Jesus is calling all who are in Him to physically and spiritually participate in a meal that will commemorate all that He has done. This humble meal might feel mysterious or mundane, but it points to a greater spiritual reality and reminds us of the work of Jesus.”
Notice, this isn’t passive. This kind of remembering is active. We seek things out, Horner says. We examine them and find meaning in them. We find God’s hand at work and thank Him for all He’s done and all He’s given.
We live richer, fuller, more meaningful lives when we remember God’s story. And that we, our churches, and even our denomination have been given an indispensable part to play in it.
Richard Doster is the editor of byFaith Magazine.