Ever-patient Amy has an unofficial title in our home which greatly benefits Alicia, Landon and me. Amy is the Semiomnisicent One. When we reverently approach her we chant, “Have you seen the…Do you know where the…Mom, I can’t find the…Amy, where are my…” You get the picture. For me it is usually a quest for my keys, my phone or my wallet. For Alicia it is whatever she had in her hand five minutes ago. Landon’s perspective of his mom is not that she is semi-omniscient…he thinks she is fully omniscient, so he asks her where everything is all of the time. Thankfully, our Semiomniscient One remembers and retrieves what we’ve forgotten without wearying of our leaky memories. She never forgets. Ancient Israel needed a double portion of what Amy has. Listen to what God says to His people in Jeremiah 51:50
“You who have escaped from the sword, go, do not stand still! Remember the Lord…”
I was surprised to see the number of times Israel is indicted in the Old Testament for forgetting God. God equates on several different occasions the sinfulness of Israel with the act of failing to remember Him. When we stop and think about that it makes complete sense.
We forget God when we are lazy. We forget God when we lie. When we lust, we have completely forgotten the Lord. Gossips aren’t remembering Jesus Christ when they verbally slight their fellow humans. Those who steal by declining to financially support Kingdom endeavors have spiritual amnesia about God and His faithfulness to provide for them. On every occasion where my own thoughts, words or actions have grieved or quenched the Holy Spirit, it was because I had forgotten God in that moment. Every time we commit an act of deliberate sin we actually force God from our minds in order to do so. Therefore I will make a blanket statement that might give us something to chew on today: Absent minded pilgrims inevitably become straying pilgrims.
Will you spend some time today remembering your history with God? Think about the years of your ignorance when He was working on your behalf while you remained clueless. Some of you might want to ponder why He was so unspeakably gracious to deposit you in a Christian home that preserved you from the poison of man’s prostituted paradise. Others who are reading were control freaks who resisted immensely the Spirit’s work in bringing you to Christ…but relentlessly bring you He did! Then, subsequent to your salvation, God has mightily blessed you. Do not fail to remember that. Remember the prayers that He has affirmed. Remember the provision which He has often granted. Is He not your constant teacher, revealing His mighty and precious Self to you? It is good to reflect on how He has comforted you, quieted you, filled, you, thrilled you, spilled you, healed you and defended you. How often against the bombardment from the enemy has your Father stepped up and declared, ‘Enough!’ as He brings an end to the barrage? God has fed you and clothed you and sheltered you for all of these faithful years. I am too familiar with my own frailty to submit the question of how we forget the Lord; we forget Him because we are still tainted with sin and prone to selfishness. Something in us still has an occasional appeal for the darkness above the light. The real question is not how we can forget God but rather…why do we do so? Forgetting Him brings such sadness and trouble. Remembering God results in nothing but goodness.
“They have forgotten the Lord their God. Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness. Behold, we come to You, for You are the Lord our God.” – Jeremiah 3:21-22
May any and all absent minded pilgrims today break away from the things occupying their heart-focus and, instead, spend some time…remembering. We can all do that when we choose to, can’t we?