REMEMBER

So, I have been told, that God has given me a good memory. I can remember names, sermons, encouraging words...but not just good things. If I am not careful, and watching my heart, I can really remember offenses and instances of where I have been hurt, and I have had to learn to LET GO! Anyway, so, I was thinking about the memory thing. Lord, if every good and perfect gift comes from above, (James 1:17) then what is this gift of a good memory for? God gives gifts to edify the Body of Christ. Then I got to thinking, why did God give us a memory in the first place? Because memory, is tied to RELATIONSHIP. Think about it...people who can't remember your name or who you are, don't have relationship or HISTORY with you. Or, you didn't make that much of an impact on their life for them to remember you. Think about the families who have a parent or grandparent suffering from Alzheimer's. How painful it is for the families not to be recognized by their loved one. All the points of reference for their relationship...gone. Suddenly dear loved ones, become suspicious strangers. How awful. Then I thought, how passionate our God is, to want RELATIONSHIP with US, that HE GAVE our brains the ABILITY to REMEMBER. He WANTS to have HISTORY with us. If we DIDN'T have the ability to remember, we would have NO HISTORY with people. No memory of shared experiences to build on. Often in hard times, it is a MEMORY of a word spoken, promise given, or dream, that gives us the STRENGTH to KEEP going. If we didn't have a memory, we would just be BLANK! Never able to accomplish anything, because without memory, you don't know what you are doing. You would never KNOW people. You would meet them, then forget. You would share an experience, and then it would be gone. Without memory, there is no RELATIONSHIP. How awesome and passionate for us, is our God that in His wisdom, He gave use the ability to REMEMBER HIM. To share experience with Hom, and not lose it. No wonder all throughout the Bible, God instructed the Israelites to REMEMBER HIM and what He had done! He charged them to SET UP MEMORIALS (Josh 4:1-8 one example) and FEASTS (Ex. 12, the Passover) to remember His deliverance and miracles, generations after. And just as I did this morning, Jesus instructed us TO REMEMBER HIM (I Corn. 11)through Communion. Remember what HE HAS DONE. Remember His promises. REMEMBER where He has brought you from! Even we make effort to preserve memories, with scrapbooks, photo albums, journals, home videos, etc. Why? Because memories = experiences with loved ones, or important lessons that if we forget, it could be detrimental to us. So, thank you LORD for our memories!