Remember What the Lord Your God has Done

For the last several months I have been in a very in-depth study of the book of Exodus.  One of the overall themes and lessons that I learned from the book is how God told His people to look back and remember what the Lord their God did for them.  This wasn’t just something that He told them once, He told them this very thing many times throughout the whole book of Exodus.  Many of these times it was because it seemed that the people forgotten what He had done for them and how He had provided with them.  The people continually grumbled and complained hopelessly, forgetting what God had done for them.

He even created the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of the Passover to command His people to remember.  They were to share the story of how the Lord their God brought them out of the midst of captivity and performed miracles and signs, setting them apart.  They were commanded to tell their children the stories, to help them understand that they serve a God who has provided.  This was to be so that the children would learn His ways and would continue to remember and pass them down throughout their generations.  To keep their eyes focused on the One True God so that they would not resort to serving false gods.

Last weekend, I took the opportunity to have a one night retreat to get away to pray for direction and to focus on the Lord.  He woke me up early Saturday morning with a word that goes as follows:

“You feel like there is something pressing in on you from every end.  Remember, I am the Lord your God who will take you from out of the midst of it.  Keep your eyes on Me with a pure heart.”

I wrote this word down to keep it in remembrance because at the time, it didn’t have but so much meaning.    I came back from the retreat encouraged and hopeful from what I had gleaned.  Monday morning, I had a beautiful time with the Lord as I studied His word and actually began to dream again.

But how the enemy comes, quickly, to steal what the Lord has planted (thank God my soil is cultivated).  Work that day became very tense and then we received bad news upon bad news.  I was simply devastated.  All I could think was that I would never allow myself to dream again.  Why dream?  Dreams were only made to be broken and shattered – come back to reality.  I was also fearful of what the future might hold.  I was a mess.

But, mercy comes in the morning, praise God.  Still hurting, as I began to cry out to the Lord, asking Him why?  I cried out that I felt this incredible pressure and could barely breathe.  He told me that everything was going to be all right and to trust Him.  I cried out help me to see that and help me to trust You.  Then He put me in remembrance of the word He had just given me 3 days earlier.

Now I remember all of those other times that I felt like there was no hope.  That I felt like my world was caving in around me.  When we struggled with infertility, but yet my God provided.  When we were told not once, but twice that we would lose our first baby Addison to miscarriage, but yet He held her in there and provided a beautiful child.  When I took a job that I realized that I was hardly qualified for, He showed me how to rely upon Him to provide the knowledge and skills I needed.  When the potential horrors were told to us of how everything in a triplet pregnancy can go wrong but yet we now have 3 more beautiful children that are healthy and developmentally sound.  That caring for 3 babies and another would be financially devastating, but yet He provided.  That with mounting medical bills and debt, still, He has provided.  That when we were to pay both rent and mortgage that was well above 50% of my salary, He still provided.  The list can go on and on.

My point is, I am to look back and remember how my God carried us through these difficult times.  That I can trust Him because He is good.  And that I am to proclaim His goodness to all.  To proclaim it especially to my children so that they will know the Lord their God who they will serve one day as well.  Then they in turn will pass it on throughout the generations.  My friends, I am encouraged.  I am hopeful.  I am blessed.