Do you suffer from forgetfulness?
I certainly do, I just walked into my daughter’s room to wake her up and forgetting what day it was I reminded her to wear her orange shirt for camp today. A few seconds later she said to me, “It’s not orange day.”
We all forget things from time to time. The consequences of forgetting can range from wearing an orange shirt to camp when everyone else is wearing blue, to something far greater.
From the very beginning when God first chose Abraham and called him out of his land to go to a new land He would provide for him and his family God has intended for His people to be set apart from all others. God intended for His people to know him, to love Him, and to never forget Him. God promised that by not forgetting Him, His people would experience freedom and blessings that would prove His supernatural power and love.
But the Israelites suffered from forgetfulness!
And though David wrote of the hope and life that comes from not forgetting God…
“So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.” Psalm 78:7
“I will delight in your decrees and not forget your word.” Psalm 119:16
“I will never forget your commandments, for by them you give me life.” Psalm 119:93
David suffered from forgetfulness!
It’s easy to forget!
Mark, Kayla, and I went on “The Walk over the Hudson” this past Saturday, and afterwards visited the Vanderbilt Mansion that is nearby. I haven’t read too much of their history, but one sentence I heard about them really caught my attention and causes me to ponder. Though Cornelius Vanderbilt was the richest man in America, and his son went on to double his fortune, and then became the richest man in America, the family fortune was gone by the third generation. There were many factors that played into it, World War 1, and the Great Depression, but it seems as though the family suffered from forgetfulness.
Definition of forgetfulness – Marked by neglectful or heedless failure to remember
So, if forgetting is the result of not remembering…
to beat forgetting is to remember!
History is recorded so that we can learn from those who have gone before us. We can learn from their successes and from their failures. We will either choose to learn from their mistakes and change our actions or we will choose to continue in the ways they lived and encounter the same consequences they suffered. God reminds us of the importance of not forgetting what our ancestors have gone through.
“I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground.” 1 Corinthians 10:1
“But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” James 1:25
We can’t forget something we never learned.
We can’t remember something we never knew.
With so much information instantly available to us today it seems as though we should be able to learn valuable lessons, and we should know many things that will benefit us. But, instead it seems the ease of accessing information keeps us from really taking in information so that we never fully learn or know the things we need to.
Why study something when we can just look it up again tomorrow?
To not forget requires intentional learning!
Remembering requires intentional knowing!
I have found that the more important something is the more I will do to make sure I don’t forget. I will put it on my calendar, write myself a note and leave it in a very visible place, send myself an email…
God knows we are prone to forget, so He tells us many times in the Bible to not forget, and He reminds us many times to always remember. So, if you find yourself forgetting God…
What is causing you to neglect God?
Why is it that you are failing to remember God?
How important is God to you?
It is in the forgetting that you experience bondage and suffering due to poor choices.
It is in the remembering that you experience the freedom and blessings of God.
While there is a great difference between the consequences of wearing the wrong color shirt, and losing the family fortune, the consequences of forgetting God are even greater.
“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” Matthew 16:26
May you make it your priority to never forget to remember God!