Do You Remember?

With the passing of 9/11 and the 5 Year Anniversary of the attacks on our country, the theme of "remembering" reverberated throughout the country this week. It seems that many people had forgotten the intensity of the emotions felt that day, the lessons learned, the vulnerability etsablished, and the loss incurred.

It reminded me how fragile our human memory is - that, within 5 years, so many of us could allow such horrific events to fade in our memories. That's true also with wonderful events and developments in life. No wonder that after God miraculously brought the Israelites across the Jordan River, Joshua took the following action according to God's direction:

So Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the sons of Israel, one man from each tribe; and Joshua said to them, "Cross again to the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel. Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, 'What do these stones mean to you?' then you shall say to them, 'Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off ' So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever."

God had performed a miracle of nature before the Israelites - but knew the human tendency to forget. So they were instructed to build a monument to remember God's faithfulness and power. Note Joshua's words after they built the memorial:

"When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, 'What are these stones?'
then you shall inform your children, saying, 'Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.'
For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the LORD your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, so that you may fear the LORD your God forever."

God wanted His people to remember what He had done and who He is. How often do we forget what God does in our lives? How often do we forget who He is? Maybe it's still a good idea to make memorials to remind us of what God does for us....Maybe, in small ways at least, we should mark significant times in our lives where we should remember what God has done. We can each mark those times in different ways, but mark them we should. Simple reminders are powerful in sharpening our weak human memories.

What God does is worth remembering.