View Blog Entry

Memory is a fantastic thing.

I once connected on Facebook with an acquaintance I had not seen or even thought about for over sixty years. He mentioned us playing basketball together. Instantly, I remembered him in that context—and retrieved stored data from the recesses of my mind.

God wants us to recover information from our past to help us navigate present or future situations.

Some say the Book of Deuteronomy could be called the book of remembering. Over and over again, before he died, Moses told Israel to remember. The past is always the key to the present and future. Moses knew his people's tendency to let their hearts stray, their minds wander, and their emotions deceive them.

When trials and temptations come, and they always do, we engage them by remembering God's faithfulness in the past. When the prophet Jeremiah was afflicted, he said, "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning (Lamentations 3:21-23 NLT). Embedded in the memory of this prophet were experiences that made these statements true. In his time of need, his memory of God's faithfulness sustained him.

When the battle rages in our minds or we find ourselves sinking into the deep waters of unbelief, the path to our heart is always through our minds. We can't prevent every thought from entering our minds, but we can control that flow of information. God has etched upon our minds all those instances of His love and care for us.

Dwell on God's faithfulness in the past, and He will turn present and future perplexities into peace, as well as fear into faith.

(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)

(For more devotions, visit Christian Devotions.)