Remember His Faithfulness
November 3, 2021
Ever since I was little, I have walked through life with an intense ability to capture moments vividly in my memory. I have learned over time, however, my ability to keep my eyes focused on the activity of God in my life is heavily interconnected with what I remember and how I remember it. It is so easy for me to live from narratives that cast God as either a careless villain, or a silent participant in my pain. In that same vein, I can easily put on discarded rags of my past and remember choices I made that in no way honored God or who He made me to be. Those memories set off the ghosts of fears that Satan loves to taunt me with, he’s a name caller that one, and they start firing at will: liar, whore, weakling. Once the old starts, the more recent fears join his song: bad daughter, bad wife, bad Mom, failure. Before I know it, I am drowning in a sea of memories, pummeled with recent fears, and paralyzed in the present about things that are not even close to true, or have been redeemed by grace and washed with water and made whiter than snow.
We see memory issues in the Old Testament too. Take the exodus generation as an example. When things were hard in the desert as they made their way to the Promised Land, their response was to remember “how good things were in Egypt.” (Numbers 11). Truthfully, I don’t want to discount how hard things may have been in that moment. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, washing sand out of your clothes day in and day out, trying to raise children on a pilgrimage; all of that sounds pretty dang hard. However, instead of remembering what actually happened in Egypt, where they were enslaved, persecuted, and desperate for God’s intervention, they completely missed God’s presence (literally) among them in their journey. How we remember how God redeemed us, affects how we see Him leading us now.
Have you ever found yourself in the landslide of this kind of spiritual attack? Maybe it manifests itself uniquely for you, but I would be willing to bet, that at some point Satan has used your past, or your fears, to manipulate your vision of the present and therefore affect your ability to function properly, to see God’s activity before you, or freely live and worship from any form of abundance.
When the author of Hebrews says “let us hold unswervingly to the hope that we profess for He who promised is faithful” (10:23, NIV) I think he encapsulates the essence of the only way out of such a fierce attack on the mind, body and heart of a believer. We hold unswervingly. In other translations it may say “to hold fast,” but the original wording there is katecho, which according to Strong’s Concordance is translated a number of ways that all have to do with holding on, and one of them is to “keep in memory.” Keeping God’s faithfulness and what He has done is essential to holding on to the truth, especially when we are attacked by lies.
When we are able to rightly remember, we can make space to renew our minds and reset our vision about who God is and who we are now because of Him. We can either look back in shame, or we can look back through grace. Where I see a broken girl that gave in to so much, I also can see a God who protected her from more damage and made a way of hope for her future. Where I see parenting fails, missed connections, and piles of untended work, I also see God’s growth of my family, seeds He alone has sewn and produced precious fruit in my children, and the potential for Him to make Himself known in the new mercies of tomorrow. When our memories are wrapped in hope, we are able to fight the lies, and hold fast to His faithfulness. Then, in the middle of that sacred space of healing and a renewed vision of the past and the present, gratitude can rise up in one’s soul in such a fierce wave the only response is worship.
There is a line from a very popular hymn called “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” that says “Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I’ve come.” This line is based on a story found in 1 Samuel 7. Samuel has called all of Israel together and asked them to repent. They have allowed idol worship and pagan practices to infiltrate their way of life, and Samuel (and God) have had enough. Its time to remember Whose people they are, and therefore how they were called to live. In the middle of this worship service of sorts, the Philistines, an enemy people of Israel, find out that all of Israel is gathered together and they decide this is the perfect opportunity to attack. God is not having it, and doing what only He can do, He miraculously delivers the Philistines into the hands of Israel, and they are now gathered back together repentant, victorious and grateful. Samuel then takes a stone, and places it there in the place of worship and of battle and names it “Ebenezer,” which literally translates to “stone of help,” and declares “Thus far, the Lord has helped us!” (1 Samuel 7:12, NIV)
This act of raising an Ebenezer serves multiple purposes in this moment for Israel. First of all, it’s a tangible declaration of praise. By HIS help alone, they’ve come this far spiritually, figuratively, and literally. His love set them apart. His mercy held space for their repentance and returning to Him. His provision and mighty hand saved their lives. He is worthy of such a declaration. Secondly, it’s a stone that will stay there in that spot forever. It will serve as a reminder to any who pass by what God did for Israel there in that place. This produces a posture of gratitude for every person who lived through it, and a potential posture for those who may need to remember it when they pass by it in the future. Remembering who God is, and what He has done fuels our hope for what He can do in the future.
When we face a battle for our memory, which directly affects our ability to rightly see God’s faithfulness, we too can raise an Ebenezer, and the only response that we can give is genuine thanksgiving, because by His help alone we have come. It provides a long list of reasons to feel gratitude, even when things still feel hard, and to fix our eyes on where God is still moving no matter what’s happening around us. When that feeling infuses our souls, when we can see clearly again, we can’t help but thank Him. By Your help alone, Lord, we’ve come.
Practice:
What might that look like in your life? Where do you need to see God renew your vision for painful places of your life? Where do you need to see God in your family of origin no matter how much you agree or disagree in the current dynamics of life? Where have you seen God move in the past that can help fuel your hope for where you are now?
When we raise Ebenezers and when we express our gratitude to God through our thanksgiving, we are not minimizing what has happened to us, the pain of our past or our circumstances. Instead, we are making a choice to minimize its power over us and lay a foundation of hope for renewing our minds for the present and the future.