MEMORY AND TIMING

Psalm 106:13

“But they soon forgot what He had done and did not wait for His plan to unfold.”

It is an amazing thing to read through the Book of Exodus. Part of the difficulty in studying it, is that it becomes impossible to dodge the truth about human nature. The lie embedded in the spiritual DNA of everyone since Adam’s stupidity in the Garden of Eden is that God is not enough for human being to flourish as human beings. God’s ways are not preferable to going our own way, even in the face of historic reality; the devastation waiting at the end of our own trajectory.

We want to believe that IF we had seen the miracles God had done in Egypt as He decimated every idol and false god the Egyptians worshipped, we would have never forgotten God’s power and faithfulness. It is a terribly sad thing that all too often, our memories of all that God has done resemble Swiss cheese. We muse with words unspoken, “What have You done for me lately?”

The spiritual equation for us is plainly written, “If God is for us, who can stand against us?” The day by day need for every follower of Christ Jesus is TO NOT FORGET…TO REMEMBER ALL HE HAS DONE.

Peter tells us in his second Epistle that (2 Peter 1:2-9) that:

May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence. And because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.

We tend to be, like Israel in the wilderness, very forgetful. But Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth; that He would take the things of Jesus and deliver them to us. We are meant to grow in our understanding of what God has completed for us in Christ Jesus. They say that repetition is the price of learning and there is truth in that. God has given us exceedingly great and precious promises, everything we need to live godly lives. We have received this by God’s grace and power. As we steep ourselves in the Word of God the Holy Spirit takes that Word and applies it practically to us producing His fruit in us, causing us to grow in grace, to mature.

Before entering into the Promised Land, Moses told God’s people to remember all He had done, to talk about it at home, at meals, at work, on walks, on every occasion, to memorize the Word of God, His Covenant promises and commandments so they would not forget and would learn to trust the Lord God even when His timing was not what they had anticipated. They were to remember His faithfulness and to never forget that He would always be faithful to His Word.

The Psalmist wrote, “Thy Word I have hidden in my heart so that I might not sin against Thee.” As we follow Jesus in the Holy Spirit’s power, He produces the fruit of His character in us: knowledge, self-control, patient endurance, godliness, brotherly affection, and sacrificial love; God’s Love. Learning to trust what God has done, we will grow in memory of and not forget how we have been forgiven, that we are new creations, that nothing in all creation can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus.

God has a plan for our lives; meaning and purpose that will unfold more and more as we follow Him daily. He is never late in revealing where He is leading us. The fact that He has promised to lead us and guide us is evidence that there IS a destination ahead. Trust Him, even when you can’t see. Don’t forget what He has done, or you will be tempted to fall back to relying on yourself, your own insight and resources and gratitude will shrivel up in you as you begin to see God as a means to your own ends rather than your Sovereign Father and Lord. Remember!