Don't Forget to Remember

I wonder if other parents fight the same fights with their kids that we fight with ours. I can only assume you have the same conversations in your home that we have in ours.

Do you ever tell your kids to remember to do something? And when you tell them that, do they ever respond, "Yeah. I know"? And after they have told you that they know, do they fail to do it anyway?!

Maddening, isn't it?

As every parent knows, sometimes "Remember" doesn't simply mean to not forget or to know you've heard it before. Sometimes "remember" means to act. Pick up your shoes. Put your dishes into the dishwasher. Hang up your clothes. Do your homework. "Yeah, I know."

One of my favorite passages in all of the Bible is in Exodus 2:24. The Hebrew people have been enslaved. Generation after generation is born into captivity. They must have begun to feel like this was their lot in life forever. They cried out to God. And nothing seems to be happening. He was like the teen ager: They told Him, but he wasn't responding.

Amidst years and years of inactivity, one little, seemingly harmless verse shows up.

God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

"Big deal!"

You ask, "Who cares if God simply remembers?!"

Oh, but that isn't the end. The remembering means God is getting ready to act. Things are about to change.

And God isn't the only one who is called to remember. In the Book of Ecclesiastes we read...

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say, "I find no pleasure in them".
Remember him - before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
or the wheel broken at the well,
and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
(Ecclesiastes 12:1, 6-7)

What does all that mean? Read what one scholar writes about this passage:

"Solomon urged people to live responsibly before death comes. He refers to two common figures of light ('golden lamp') and water (see Ps. 36:8-9 for a similar use of those two figures). The dissolution of the body is suggested by light being extinguished: the silver cord holding a golden bowl (in which the light burns) snaps and the bowl is broken. Death is also referred to by water being unavailable: the pitcher which holds water is shattered and the wheel by which it is drawn from the well is broken." (Donald Glenn)

Someday your life will end. Don't wait till the silver cord breaks and the bowl shatters. Remember your Creator now. Learn who your Creator is. Discover what your Creator is like. Begin to reflect your Creator's character in the world. Begin to live out the destiny for which you were born. Don't forget to remember.

One day the spirit will return to God who gave it. I want to plan ahead and be ready for the day I'll give an account for this life I've been given. How 'bout you?

Grace & peace