Trying to Remember

Normally I would keep busy on a day like this (Labor Day, 2017), but this year I really felt the need to take some time to recharge. In addition to talking some personal time today, I also allowed myself some time in Prescott, AZ on Saturday to just bask in the beauty of God’s creation. 

I think I needed time to remember….

Remembering is so vital for a believer… but even more so for me. I get so forgetful at times of who I am in the eyes of God. I forget what HE is capable of. I think it’s not just me though… I mean, why else do we see God telling His people ALL THROUGHOUT the Bible to “REMEMBER” “REMEMBER” “REMEMBER.”

They built altars and ebenezer to remind themselves of how God had moved in their particular story…. but also to show their children of what God was capable of.

Geez, the Israelites were a forgetful bunch weren’t they? They were always being delivered supernaturally from the hand of enemies, famine, etc. yet would pretty much immediately turn back to their panic, their despair. 

Or sometimes, their wickedness.

Don’t we do that though? We forget so easily. We are so connected, so in touch with the world around us that we fail to see through it to the world beyond. We suffocate ourselves with endless information. The endless stream of knowledge keeps surging, never relenting, never giving us a moment to breathe, to process, to react. It’s CONSTANT 24/7. 

I’m convinced that this is how the church has gotten so anemic in recent years. It’s not that the desire isn’t there beneath the surface… but we get swept away in our phones, in the media output of the rest of the world. It’s actually fairly diabolical… 

“If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy” the old saying goes, or something like that.

And boy are we BUSY!

It’s like a drug we are all hooked on. Our busy schedules are worn like a badge of honor, when instead it’s really taking our lives captive. 

I need to stop being so busy.

We need to stop being so busy.

We all need to put down our phones.

We need to look at each other in the face.

Dialogue.

Encourage.

Tell our family and friends that we love them.

Focus our attention outward… 

Or Upward.

Because frankly, we aren’t much good outward if we don’t look upward first.

God, how we need to look up every once in a while…to see the light that is always there… to see the hope that is always present… to take a deep breath before we plunge back into the waters of this age. 

I need to remember how you’ve parted waters before… 

You can part them again, so I can walk right through them on dry land.

I need to remember how you’ve spoken to a raging sea and it immediately obeyed you and calmed. 

I need to remember that the hope of Jesus is not just a “selling tool” of evangelism, but a powerful, transformational truth that STILL takes my life and turns it upside down.

When I look in the mirror, I need not see a striving, exhausted being. Instead, I can see a redeemed prince. I am a child of LIGHT. I can BREATHE. The storm has no power over me.

I ramble and say these things to myself, but they are also TRUE. A deep truth that is more true than any of the fake information and hope that this world can muster. No idea or personal preference or motivation can provide calm to a soul quite like the words of Jesus. 

So I try to remember. I MAKE myself if it’s a particular difficult day.

Remember. 

"While I was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple." - Jonah 2:7