We Easily Forget…Lord Help us Remember

I just finished week 5 in the Nehemiah study this weekend. Its focus was on Nehemiah 9, which has the longest recorded prayer in the Old Testament. It is a prayer of confession about Israel’s shortcomings and sin, and God’s faithfulness over the years. It’s such a beautiful reminder of God hearing the cries of His people and delivering them, over and over again, even when they were not walking in His ways and their troubles were directly related to their disobedience. Incredible.

Over and over again we see throughout the Old Testament (and the New) that God responds to His people with faithfulness. He hears their cries and responds. He delivers, sustains, and redeems.

How easy it can be for us to forget this, as we allow our eyes to focus more on our troubles and toils than on the God who is more than able to deliver us from them, or to sustain us through them, or to redeem us and restore us on the other side of them. And, once we’re on the other side of them, how quickly we can forget what He has done for us, particularly as we begin to face another obstacle.

I’ve often said how amazing it is that the Israelites, who experienced God’s power and deliverance in such HUGELY obvious ways could be prone to forget and doubt His goodness and grace…after all, it would seem that they had so many evidences of His working in ways we don’t necessarily ascribe or see as readily today, but when we realize that their long days and years in the desert were very real, and we consider how quickly we can be overwhelmed and beat down by our light and momentary troubles in our proverbial deserts, and how quickly we can begin to look to our own solutions rather than waiting on God in trust, perhaps we can better understand we have much to learn about God’s faithfulness to them and to us.

Oh, how prone we are to forget… how I pray that we will remember…that when we begin to feel alone or doubt that we will be able to recount His faithfulness to His people over ALL the ages—afterall, we are, through the blood of Jesus Christ, included in the promises and covenants to His people so very long ago.