Sticky notes are a great way to help me remember when I need to do something! I just stick it right where I'll see it at the appropriate time and ta da! Mission accomplished! I don't know how people ever coped with staying on task and remembering what they needed to do without them! Or another tactic to help me remember is to ask someone else to help me remember to do such and such! One time I asked my friend Amanda to help me remember that I was wearing my seatbelt! It's a long story and you had to have been there! But the point is when verbalizing it, it helps me remember! These are the crazy things I do to help with remembering.
Apparently God thinks it's important for us to remember the things He's done in our lives. Quite often He commanded in the Old Testament not to forget Him or to turn to other gods. I came across such a passage today in Dueteronomy 8:12-18, "For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! Do not become proud at that time and forget the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. He did all this so you would never say to yourself, "I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy." Remember the LORD your God. He is the one who gives you the power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath."
I can recall some times in my own life, though few in comparison to many people, where I have felt like I was at the end of my rope. There was nothing else I could do! I felt like giving up and discouragement settled in for a long unwanted stay! But in reflection, or in remembering, God was there! Even though I felt like I was alone, He was still there! The beauty of this all is that because of God's day to day help in my life AKA His mercy, His grace and His faithfulness, I have come out on the other side of those hard times! Though they were not pleasant at the time, those times have drawn me closer to God. And I am a richer person today because of the work that God has done and is doing in my life!
I know I've written about restoration before, but for some reason I keep coming back to this topic. Maybe it's because God wants me to remember! If I take a long look at myself in the mirror - not literally, I can see the things God has done and is doing! Some are small things, but others are huge! Look at all the things God reminded Moses of when he wrote Dueteronomy. God rescued the Israelites from slavery, led them through the wilderness, protected them from snakes and scorpions, in the heat when it was dry He gave them water, when they were hungry God gave them a substance to eat called manna. In other words God cares about us. He wants us to remember that! He wants me to remember how He's taken care of myself and my family in the past and know that He is not going to abandon me now or in the future!
Simply and honestly I am thankful to God that He takes the things that could be seen as obstacles and reasons to give up and transforms them for His purposes. He teaches us, tests us and in all of that testing He removes the things in our lives that detract from His beauty in us.
Some verses to sticky note for me are:
Job 23:10
"But he knows the way I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold."
Lamentations 3:19-23
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
