Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Remember

Right now I have a friend who is experincing some memory problems. I use the word some generously. Spending time with her yesterday though, and continuing to read No More Faking Fine, I saw an unexpected connection. My hope is that you will find this just as interesting and empowering as I do.

For years my friend was involved with a group of women who would travel together. And while she has very little concept of time right now, she seems to recognize patterns of time. For instance, this is apparently around the time they would normally start planning their annual trip. Because of that, she is packed and ready to go. Unfortunately, the trip doesn't have a destination or dates yet. It's really very heartbreaking. But what's intriguing to me is that she remembers.

Throughout Scripture we are called to remember things, both good and bad. We are called to remember the faithfulness of God (good), but we are also called to remember His rescue because of what we did that required it (bad) so that we don't go down the same road again. The call is constant and consistent from Genesis to Revelation. Remembering matters a great deal.

However, our enemy knows this and uses every opportunity he can to make this work to his advantage.

Esther Fleece writes Long after our wounding has occurred, the enemy can still abuse us. He can take the same lies and patterns of behavior and keep us in a destructive cycle. (No More Faking Fine, p. 181) Our enemy has a memory as strong as the day is long. And believe me, he remembers everything we have ever done that we regret.

The problem with this scenario however is that if we don't go to God to get His perspective on the situation, our decisions, or what our circumstances were, we will only ever remember things from our limited perspective that will often end up intertwined with Satan's destructive perspective.

I have to admit, as much as I never want to meet Satan face to face, there is a part of me that may or may not fantasize about going Ashely Judd in Missing on his sorry self. (If you don't remember that show, don't worry, no one does. It wasn't picked up after it's 10 episode pilot and I still haven't let it go. It was really good and she was ex-CIA and a total, you know what.)

We know that before Jesus died, He promised that after His death and resurrection we would be given the gift of the Holy Spirit that would teach us and remind us of everything He has said to us. (John 14:26) But in order to have that happen, we have to do two things: ask and listen. If we don't ask for God's heavenly perspective and then listen for His response, we will always remember things from our vantage point and be prepared to go to an unknown destination with an unset departure time that may not even happen.

At this point I could give you tips on how to thwart this. My guess is that you know, or could reasonably assume, what I would say. Read, meditate, pray, journal. But like I insinuated yesterday, knowing what to do matters little if we don't actually do it.

But we can still be encouraged because our knowledge becomes power. If we know what we are facing, we can begin to make concentrated efforts on winning this fight. We aren't going to get it perfect. We will get lax, we will get overwhelmed, and sometimes we will just forget. But the goal is never perfection, it's always progress. Day by day we can make choices to remember, ask, and then listen. Over time it will add up. It might feel slow and daunting but one day we will look back and remember the journey we've been on and see just how far we've come. And the most beautiful part of our story will always be that God remembers everything in perfect detail and is working it all out for our good in the end.


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