Day 413 - August 2 - Remembering

Back in the Old Testament days, the Israelites often set up stones, or altars, to remind themselves of the things that God had done for them. It was a way of trying not to fall into the "God has forgotten us" mindset, which is pretty easy to fall into sometimes.

On a different but related note, I have been reconnecting with many of my old friends from college through Facebook lately, and while it's fun to reconnect and find out what these folks are doing with their lives right now, a good deal of laughter and joy is generated as I look through old photographs and we share stories of our escapades and mishaps from more than 25 years ago.

So I've been pondering on memory and remembering lately, and took the liberty of scrolling back through some of the archived blog postings from last fall, and I wanted to reprint one that struck me. This was posted back in September 2008...

Allow me to recap part of the story of Abraham, for those who may not be familiar with it. The story is found in Genesis 17, 21, and 22, but in short, God promises that Abraham will be the father of a great nation, even though he's 99 years old and has no children except one, who, according to the promise, will not be the heir. The heir is yet to be born, even though Abraham's wife is 89 years old. The promise includes the statement that the son's name will be Isaac. Sure enough, a year or so later they have a baby boy, and name him Isaac. Then, sometime later, when Isaac is old enough to work and talk, God tests Abraham by telling him to go to a far place and sacrifice his son. Yipes! This is the kid that the promise was given about and through - how could he sacrifice his son? But Abraham packs up everything he needs, goes to the far place, loads the boy up with wood for the fire, takes the fire and the knife, and climbs a mountain. Isaac says "Uh, Dad? We've got wood and fire, but where's the lamb for the sacrifice?" Abraham's answer is "The Lord will provide the lamb". So they get to the top of the mountain, Abraham hunts up some rocks and builds an altar, puts the wood on top of it, and then throws his son up there and prepares to sacrifice him according to the Lord's direction, at which point the Angel of the Lord stops Abraham and proceeds to bless him for his obedience.

This doesn't have very much to do with my situation - I haven't been called to sacrifice my son, or anything like that. But I think it's significant that, having received the promise about Isaac, Abraham has enough faith to trust that God will provide - even if Abraham has to carry through with what he's been commanded to do. The book of Hebrews says that Abraham had so much faith that he was confident that God would raise Isaac from the dead if necessary in order to fulfill His word - that's how much faith Abraham had.

He had so much faith that God would be faithful to His promise that Abraham loaded up the family donkey with wood, fire, a knife and his precious son and took a multi-day journey, in spite of the fact that God had told him the purpose of the trip was to kill his boy. He knew two things in his knower, as it were - that God had promised big things through his son, and that God is true to His nature (which this test ran counter to). So Abraham had enough faith to make the preparations even though he suspected they would either be unnecessary, or that God would fix it some other way - because God has to stay true to His nature.

This is the part that really caught my attention...

Let me clearly state that I am not Abraham, nor do I have such faith. So what's his story got to do with me, then? Just this - we are making the preparations to deal with Connor's treatment and rehabilitation, but that is not where our confidence lies. We are not content to accept the tiny improvement Man can offer - we fully expect God to render this unnecessary, and we want you to, as well. Our prayer continues to be not that He would prepare the way to the next step in rehab, but that He would heal Connor and set him upright on his own two feet.

Our prayer for you is that you will believe with us, trusting God and praying for the boy's complete restoration, and keeping sight of that in the midst of this parade of baby steps.

Thank you all for your faith and hope.

Going back and reading this caused me to say "Hey, stupid - you wrote this. Have you so quickly forgotten it?" A good reminder...

So finally, in the spirit of remembrance, Cherié asked if we could do the alphabet thing again. If you don't remember, last September we ran through the alphabet, one letter daily, thinking of attributes of God that began with the different letters and choosing to praise Him for them. As I said back then, God inhabits the praises of His people, and since I want Him to be close to us and intervening in our lives, I should try to build a good place for Him to live, as it were. Which means more praise, even if I don't feel like it (which is more often than I like to admit). So we're going to dust off the alphabet game, add a new twist, and give it another go. Here's the new rules -

We start today with "A". Name something that begins with the letter of the day that you are thankful for (that's the new twist). Then, we all join together through the day praising God for the blessing He provides. Simple! They don't have to be deeply spiritual things either - simple is good as well, just so long as you're thankful to God for it.

Each day we'll end up with a long (hopefully) list of things to be grateful and thankful for - and Cherié, Connor and I will take your list, add it to ours, and thank God for them. And we all get to help each other take our eyes off of present circumstances and focus instead on the blessings that God surrounds us with.

So, Cherié started us off with "Air" which we took for granted until a ventilator came into our lives; and then she added "Animals that bring us joy". God placed the animals here to be our friends and companions, and our dog Tank brought her such joy yesterday swimming around in the pool. She added "Arms", as in "God's arms hold us and comfort us"; and "Allies from all over the world that are lifting us up and praying for Connor". That's a pretty good list already!

Now it's your turn - take the time to turn this into a devotion with your family, and make this an opportunity to challenge yourselves to look through your day to find these things. Like the old hymn says, count your blessings - and you'll be surprised at how much there is to be thankful for in the midst of everything else.

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