This past week, my oldest three children attended summer camp. Timmy, at 2 years old, wasn’t really old enough to understand what he was missing out on. But 6-year-old Jessica was. And she was bummed.
In order to make the week special for her, too, I decided that each day the older kids were at camp, Jessica, Timmy, and I would do something Jessica considered special. On the first four days, we did things like riding a miniature train through the largest city park (and stopping to buy popcorn halfway through); going out to eat; going to Bath & Body Works, smelling the different scented products, and buying Jessica some hand sanitizer; playing games; and going to one of our favorite parks that has a sandbox.
On Friday, the last day of camp, Jessica wanted to go to our smaller, neighborhood park—“our” park, as we call it. So I let Timmy and Jessica climb into the wagon, and I pulled them the two-and-a-half blocks to the park. Once there, I let them play on whatever they wanted, and I pushed them on the merry-go-round and the swings. I also took a few pictures to remember the day by.
But it wasn’t until later, as I was looking at one of those pictures on my computer, that I thought, We moms take plenty of pictures of the special times in our children’s and family’s lives. We want to make sure we remember those days. But what do we do to make sure we remember the special times with God? What do we put in place to guarantee that we won’t forget the things He’s done for us or the special memories we’ve made with Him?
If you’re like me, the answer is that you don’t do all that much to remember. Oh, sure, when God supplies us or our husband with a new job or rescues us from some difficulty (such as illness or financial disaster), we post about it on Facebook so everyone can “like” it and congratulate us. But what do we do to make sure that God’s mighty act doesn’t get lost in the general busyness of life, but gets passed down to our children (and maybe even grandchildren) so that it becomes part of the fabric of their memories and spiritual lives?
Many times in the Bible, the children of Israel are commanded to remember God and His deeds in some very real and tangible way. For example, in Joshua 4, when they are about to cross the Jordan River, God commands Joshua to choose 12 men (one for each of the tribes of Israel) and to command them to take up stones from the middle of the Jordan, and then to set them up on the other side of the river as a memorial to God’s mighty act in cutting off the flow of the Jordan before the Ark of the Covenant so that the people could cross. These stones were to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.
All throughout Scripture, God commands observances to be made in order to remember His great acts on behalf of His children. There are many festivals instituted for this purpose (Passover and The Lord’s Supper are only two examples). It was obviously quite important to God that we remember what He has done for us.
It still is.
So how can we make it a point to remember? There are many ways. We could record instances of His love and deliverance in a journal and make it a point to get out the journal and read it periodically. We could institute our own family festival to commemorate the day God did something very special in our family’s life. We could make up songs about the event and teach them to our children.
These are only a few examples. You can probably think of many more. The point isn’t so much what you do, as that you do something.
Thank God for the evidences of His mighty love and care toward you. Find a way to teach them to your children and make them a part of your family’s spiritual heritage. Remember them—not just once, or as long as it takes for your Facebook post to get buried in people’s news feeds—but forever.
We all know we’re supposed to celebrate God and what He has done. But we can’t do it if we don’t remember.
1 Samuel 17:12—Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the LORD helped us.”
Psalm 107:8—Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men.
