Doing the Next Thing: Remembering

I have so much to do, so of course, I’m sitting down to blog.

It’s like if I write something down my brain will be clear, my tasks will be all that more urgent (having just used up time blogging), and I will pull my head out from the computer and be like a ninja in a pressure cooker–totally annihilating everything that needs done between now and tomorrow. Ha. Yet, strangely true.

Sometimes the next thing to do is to sit down and write. Not pick out clothes for family pictures or clean the house for tomorrow’s showing or clean up lunch or do the dishes or think about supper or worry about the little girls’ hair that never got combed or put the fall wreath up or put away the spring flower pots. It’s just to let the kids play and clear my head. Everybody does that differently, but for me it’s to read and write. Especially to read (that’s everyday without exception)–but on days like today, to write.

Reading and writing are remembering. And right remembering is how we grow and get vision. What we remember is the cast or mold that our future will take. How I remember matters–remembering and replaying the junk (or “stuff” to use Joe Biden’s word from last night) of my life with no eye for God’s redemption and work, that’s poisonous remembering. It’s called bitterness. But remembering His good works and declaring them, remembering that my story is part of His story and it ends in glory forever, no matter how pit-like it may get down here–that’s a life-giving kind of remembering.

That’s why I read the Bible and write about the Bible. It’s what I must remember. It’s what I’ve been given to remember. It’s what shapes how I see and remember my own life and circumstances. It’s how I learn to tell the story that God has given me the right way, truthfully, with Him at the center.

“I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah”
(Psalm 143:5-6 ESV)

Everything I remember must be seen through the eyes of Truth, that is, that I was once far off from God and a slave to sin but God crushed Jesus on the cross before the foundation of the world and He raised Him from the dead and has given His Living Spirit. And before anything existed, my name was written in the Book of the Lamb who was Slain.

“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.”

(2 Timothy 2:8-13 ESV)

So, in the ridiculousness of pencil-shavings dumped out (again!), I remember Jesus. In the futility of the sticky floor, I remember Jesus. In the unhappiness of unmet expectations, I remember Jesus. In the frustration of my own sin, I remember Jesus. I remember that His Word is NOT BOUND! It is powerful to reach into my life and shake things up for the glory of God. I remember that it’s His work.

Lord, grant me faithfulness to remember Jesus Christ in every part of my life! Help me have the vision to remember.