Life is filled with defining moments – moments that give us the opportunity to change the course of our life for the better. But many costly lessons are soon forgotten. We must learn to remember before we forget.
Throughout the Old Testament God showed up for his people time and again. And time and again the people soon forgot and returned back to their futile attempts to do life apart from God.
And we’re guilty of the same – both in the big picture of forgetting to do life with God and in simply forgetting to learn from our personal histories.
For instance, after a national tragedy we pledge to never forget. And for a while we don’t. But soon our memories start to fade and life returns back to normal.
Of course it’s easy to remember when an incident is fresh. But the potential of a defining moment looses its power when our memories are short-lived.
This is why it’s important to remember to remember – to find ways to hold on to memories and integrate the important truths into our story.
Creating memorials or concrete expressions is one tangible way to remember. Perhaps some symbolic emblem or the writing down of our story will help us to recall the important moments of our life and the lessons we learned.
Another way is to be changed by the things we’ve experienced – to let the experience deeply permeate and change our very souls.
Initially this is a conscious choice to become. But eventually this new way of being is simply who we are. And like our name, it becomes hard to forget something so integral to who we’ve become.
Whatever it looks like, we must find ways to remember before we forget. Forgetting only brings unnecessary heartache and pain in the future.
Learn to remember before you forget.
Photo by Moritz Schumacher on Unsplash
