The Importance of Remembrance
Scripture is filled with verse after verse about remembering God’s faithfulness and goodness. We are urged, and often, to recall the past. Why? It’s not so that we’ll be stuck in the past or so that we can beat ourselves up over our missteps. No, the reason is because there is true power in recalling your history with God. Yes, you have seen pain, but you’re here today, and you can recall the way He carried you through that pain, too, can’t you? Yes, you’ve been ill, but you’re well today. Thank God!
How can we so easily forget all God has done for us? We sometimes have the attention span of my 2-year-old son when he’s plowing through his toy box (see also: short). Israel is like this when we read of their travels in the wilderness. God does a miracle, they thank God and repent, time goes by, then boom – right back to doubt and whining. And don’t you dare judge, because we do the EXACT same thing! Don’t think so? Well, I know I sure do.
I have walked with God through some really heavy medical trials, and I am a living testimony to His grace and healing. Yet, there are times when I find myself sick that I immediately panic and begin to question if He is with me, or worse, get angered that He has once again allowed me to partake in illness. Don’t I realize that my past experiences with sickness are all the more reason not to doubt His hand on my life, instead of a reason to question it? It’s because I’ve walked through illness in the past that I should realize that I can and will get through any new situations.
You have a choice today: will you allow your history to make you bitter or better? I challenge you to look at your past and instead of seeing the pain, see the beauty. Remember that the same pain you had, you got through. You will start to meet your new problems with a different attitude, embracing them in light of the fact that you have been through similar before, and you will get through this trial like you did the others.
REMEMBER. It will shift your circumstances, not by changing them, but by changing you.
