19 On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. 20 And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. 21 He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ 23 For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. 24 He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.”
My work week got off to a glorious start. I rolled into work about an hour late today. My tardiness wasn’t due to sleeping in or my children being under the weather. I was late because I couldn’t find my keys. Unfortunately, this is a normal occurrence. The forgetfulness strain is part of my DNA.
If it weren’t for Facebook reminders, I’d forget friend and family member’s birthdays. I’m the guy with the dazed look on his face wandering down the aisles in the grocery store trying to recall what his wife wanted him to pick up for dinner. From phone numbers to important details, my brain is often scattered.
Yet, my forgetfulness impacts me on a much greater scale than I’d like to admit. In these moments, I’m not talking about misplacing an item or forgetting to complete a task on my ‘Honey Do’ list. There are gaps in my memory of God’s faithfulness. I’m speaking of those earth shaking moments when God moved in my life.
For most of us, there was a time in our lives when we thought we could never forget what God has done. The moment we accepted the cross, the redemption of past hurts, how God brought us through situations where all hope seemed lost. But, somehow we did forget. Okay, maybe “forget” is not the right word. After the euphoria passes and life gets back to ‘normal,’ these moments are quickly forgotten. Then when our faith gets stale or we are faced with another challenging situation we find ourselves asking God, “Where are you? Are you going to come through? What have you done for me lately?”
All of humanity suffers from short term memory loss. This is nothing new. It has always been this way and one only need to open up the Old Testament to see this is true. There is a reoccurring theme which threads itself throughout the story of God. It is one of God’s faithfulness and pursuit followed almost instantaneously by our forgetfulness, fear and disobedience. Sadly, sometimes the stories seem like a sequel of disobedience because the events which unfold are almost identical to one another. God does something incredible and the Israelites rejoice in His faithfulness. Things return to normal and they forget. It sounds horrible. How could you forget God doing something miraculous in your life?
The sad truth is that it happens all the time. We forget the miracle of salvation. We forget the miracle of redemption. We forget the miracle of provision. We forget the miracle of the moment. And if we are not careful and don’t do something to counteract the normal pace of life, we will forget the miracle of the life change we hoped for and in fact, have experienced.
To counteract our tendency to forget, God commands us to grab a few stones. The erecting of altars is a practice seen throughout the pages of the Old Testament. From the Israelites constructing one after crossing the Red Sea to Abraham giving thanks to God for providing another sacrifice and sparing his son Isaac, people placed rocks on top of each other so they would remember that at this point and time they experienced firsthand God’s faithfulness and provision. The altar served as a physical reminder of what God had done in their lives.
The point of the rocks is simple. They are to take the rocks, stack them up and remember. By making an altar, they will never forget what has happened and what God did. The same holds true with you. You are going to where you have never been before and you need to take some drastic measures to remember your progress.
Over the past few weeks, you’ve learned that God’s work, the growth that He demands of you, will push you to extremes. Your word must move from conflict to celebration. The struggle may never completely go away, but instead of focusing on the hard moments, this week we want you to acknowledge those times when you got things right and where you lived up to the image behind your word.
This is not just about patting yourself on the back. It’s to make sure these moments don’t disappear into thin air. If you fail to celebrate, it will be easy to fall into the trap of forgetfulness. Your moments of victory, growth and maturity will come and go and when they’re gone they could be lost forever. Remaining and remembering are critical in the success of your word.
God, help me to remember your faithfulness. May I pause and reflect on where you have taken me so I can trust where you are leading me. Allow me to celebrate the growth while realizing I am still a work in progress. Amen.
January 30, 2012
My One Word