My earliest memory is one of my fondest. It’s of my dad sticking his head through a flap in our tent and pulling a funny face, while on a family holiday when I was only 4 years old! I also remember pushing my little sister around in a pram on the same holiday, even though I could hardly see over the handlebars…

I’m a very sentimental person, attaching a lot memories and meaning to various random objects, and also a very passionate photographer, trying to paint memories on paper. To me, memories are important. And I’ve realised lately that they’re completely necessary for a solid Christian life…

Remember. That word fills almost every page of the book of Deuteronomy, written at a time when a nation needed to be reminded of God’s influence in their lives, to prevent them from moral decay. Remembering was not something the Israelites were good at, and because of it they suffered terribly in their relationship with God. ‘If only they would remember‘, says the Lord.

Let’s be honest, there are times when we don’t feel close to God, when we have doubts over what’s happening in our lives, and doubts over what we believe. At these times it’s our memories that will save us. Because God has acted in our past, He has spoken to us, He has delivered us, we just have to remember!

Very recently I was doubting a calling from God, and was brought back to a stage in my life where it was completely falling apart, and only God’s miraculous hand of intervention saved me. It was such a divine act at the time, and remembering this absolutely pulled me away from any doubt. There was no way I could believe any different when I remembered…

This past weekend I urged a group of campers to remember the weekend, remember the experience of God’s love, remember the truth of the revelation of that love. Because it’s that memory that will rescue us in times of doubt. At a funeral once I heard the words “God gave us memories so we could have roses in winter”, and certainly in the winter of our walks with God it’s memories that bring back the aroma of those days, the beauty of truth that was revealed.

Revelations 2:4 reads “…I have this against you, you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen…“. Isn’t that like so many Christians? We’ve forgotten the joy of finding God, the vitality of knowing His love, and slipped into orthodox routine in our relationship with Him. God urges us to remember! To remember the life He has saved us from! To renew our relationship and the vigor of our walk with him! Constantly we should look back and remember.

It also helps with our faith. Just like the Chinese philosopher who rides backwards on a donkey, we live life moving forward but looking backwards, because that’s the only view that makes sense. The future never does, not when God is in control! And that’s exciting, but sometimes disconcerting. Looking back draws the curtain on the big picture, and in the big picture we suddenly find comfort that the future seems in place. But this only happens when seeing it in light of the big picture revealed by memories.

In our darkest times memories can be the light. In Psalm 77 the Psalmist paints a picture of a deeply troubled heart, a soul “that refused to be comforted“. Until He remembered. “But I will remember the years of the right hand of the most high, I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember your wonders of old.” After that everything changed! The tempo picks up, glorious descriptions of God’s provision and power rush to a conclusion that just plainly points out the fact that God had indeed worked powerfully in the past. Yes. He has. And when we remember we can confidently say as this psalmist did “Who is so great a God as our God?”

How great is our God? So much of that answer is memory. Remember.

Posted by Rich on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 17:40 and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.