Fighting spiritual amnesia

Can you remember all the good God has ever done to and for you?  When it comes to remembering God’s goodness or faithfulness, we can be forgetful.  One striking example of this is found in the book of Exodus.  In the span of just a couple of chapters, we see the Israelites delivered from slavery (chapter 12), brought through the Red Sea (chapter 14), and in chapter 16 grumbling about not having food to eat.  We might want to say to them, “Don’t you remember what God just did for you?  The water stood up like two walls, and you walked through the Red Sea on dry ground!  Don’t you think that the God who can do that is also capable of giving you food to eat?  Trust him!”

Do you remember His faithfulness?

And then, we remember that we do the same.  God brings us through a trial, answers a prayer, and within days it’s normally forgotten.  We are already looking to the next struggle on the horizon and finding reasons to gripe and complain.

Spiritual amnesia can erode our Christian joy.

10 Ways to remember the goodness and faithfulness of God:

We have to find ways to remember His faithfulness and fight spiritual amnesia.

1.    Think, remember and meditate on all God has already done for you so far

Psalm 77:11-12 (NLT) “But then I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.  They are constantly in my thoughts.  I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works.”

Don’t forget what God has done for you.  To remember and ponder on what God has done for us is foundational for living a life of faith in Christ.

What are events where God showed His power in your life?  When did He clearly guide you?  When did He answer a prayer or fulfilled a promise?

2.    Live with gratitude

Psalm 63:5-7 (AMP) “My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips When I remember You upon my bed and meditate on You in the night watches.  For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.”

Engage your heart in gratitude for what He has done.  A practical example, is to keep a gratitude journal.  A gratitude journal is a place to write down everything you feel thankful for.

The more you speak gratitude, the more you notice things to be grateful for.

3.    Give praise

Ezra 3:11 (NLT) “With praise and thanks, they sang this song to the Lord: “He is so good!  His faithful love for Israel endures forever!”  Then all the people gave a great shout, praising the Lord.”

Discouragement comes.  But we have a choice about what to do with it when it comes knocking on our door.

One of the greatest weapons we have when facing discouragement is the one David excelled in – worship.  The psalmist David frequently wrote, “Praise the Lord, oh my soul.”  When we are reminded of what God has done, we remove the frustration of what we don’t see happening.

Worship is a weapon that enables us to focus on how good God is, instead of how discouraging life can be.  Praise God for what He has done, and watch how your discouragement changes into courage, your fear turns into faith, and your anxiety transforms into peace.  When we worship our focus moves from what is not happening to what God has already made happen for us.

4.    Tell others what God has done for you

Psalm 9:1 (NLT) “I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvellous things you have done.”

It’s in our testimony that God is glorified.  When we tell others of God’s goodness or faithfulness, we not only remind ourselves, but we also encourage others.  ‘If God did it for you, He could do it for me.’

When was the last time you shared your testimony of God’s goodness or faithfulness with others?

5.    Pray, and ask the Holy Spirit to remind you

John 14:26 (NIV) “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”  Jesus knew we cannot simply depend on our own strength to remember.  Asking the Holy Spirit to help us to remember is vital to battling spiritual amnesia.

Prayer: Father God, I long to rest in Your provision, grace and mercy, but some days my soul gets distracted by all that surrounds me.  Through Your Spirit, please stir up reminders in my soul of what You have done for me.  Of promises You have given to me.  Of the good things You have planned for me.  Help me not lose hope because I took my eyes of You.  In You alone I trust.  In Jesus name, Amen.

6.    Read your Bible every day

Matthew 19:26 (NLT) “Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible.  But with God everything is possible.”  ‘But God’ is a dramatic and powerful phrase in the Bible.  It yields to God’s power, sovereignty and majesty if used correctly.

We found ‘But God’ from the first pages of Scripture and through the New Testament:

  • Genesis 45:8 (NIV) “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.”
  • Genesis 50:20 (NIV) “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
  • 1 Samuel 23:14 (NIV) “David stayed in the wilderness strongholds and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands.”
  • Acts 13:29-30 (NLT) “When they had done all that the prophecies said about him, they took him down from the cross and placed him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead!”

The above Scriptures are only a small part of the stories told.  When we take time to read the Bible, God reveals wisdom, conviction and encouragement.  Scripture is one of the main ways God communicates with us.  He is not a God of coincidence, and He will speak into our personal situations.  Our God is compassionate.  He sees and loves us for who we are, right where we are at.  He knows what we daily face and is close to us even when we are discouraged.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (TPT) “Every Scripture has been written by the Holy Spirit, the breath of God.  It will empower you by its instruction and correction, giving you the strength to take the right direction and lead you deeper into the path of godliness.  Then you will be God’s servant, fully mature and perfectly prepared to fulfil any assignment God gives you.”

7.    Write it down

Exodus 17:14 (NLT) “After the victory, the Lord instructed Moses, “Write this down on a scroll as a permanent reminder, and read it aloud to Joshua.”

Answered prayer is the interchange of love between the Father and His child.
Andrew Murray (1828-1917)

Keep a journal or use prayer sheets.  Write out your prayer requests, and then record the ways in which God answered those prayers.  When you’re feeling discouraged, look back on those records of God’s faithfulness.

8.    Touch, smell, taste and be reminded

1 Corinthians 11:24 (NLT) “Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”

Partaking in holy communion is a profound way of remembering and proclaiming what Christ has done.  In the Lord’s Supper, we take in our hands the bread and the cup.  The senses of touch, smell, and taste are all involved as we partake of a meal representing Christ’s death in our place and what He has done for us.

9.    Meet with fellow believers to encourage one another to remember God’s goodness

Hebrews 10:25 (TPT) “This is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting together, as some have formed the habit of doing, because we need each other!  In fact, we should come together even more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate that day dawning.”  1 Thessalonians 5:11 (ESV) “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”  Encourage means to support, assist, boost, inspire and urge on one another.

Faith requires perseverance.  One of the ways to continue to persevere is through Christian fellowship.  Fellowship reminds us we are not alone.  The testimonies of others make our faith stronger.  It helps us to keep our eyes focused on God.  Fellow believers can help us remember all that God has done for us.

10.  ‘Build’ memorials

Joshua 4:21-24 (NLT) “Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’  Then you can tell them, ‘This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over.  He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that the Lord’s hand is powerful, and so you might fear the Lord your God forever.”

Previously, in Joshua 3, we read of an amazing miracle God performed for his people.  He caused the Jordan River to stop flowing so they could cross on dry ground into the Promised Land.  God then instructed them, through Joshua, to gather twelve stones from the Jordan to set up as a memorial.  One man from each tribe was selected to take a stone from the riverbed.  Joshua set them up as a sign, as a remembrance, of what God accomplished for his people on that day.

What memorials do you have?

Let us not forget

May we be people who fight spiritual amnesia with God-given means of remembrance, with spiritual disciplines that keep spiritual amnesia away.  Let us anchor ourselves in God’s goodness.

Lamentations 3:21-23 (NLT) “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.”

Prayer: Dear Father, I praise and thank You that You are a faithful God.  As I go through my day, help me to remember that Your steadfast love never ends, and that Your mercies are new every morning.  In Jesus name, Amen.