Do you remember …? How often have you been asked that question … and how easy do you find it to answer? Isn’t it strange that as the years increase so the memories appear to decrease, both in quantity and quality? You reach out for a word or a memory and somehow, it has disappeared. There are some memories that are as clear and as colourful as the day you first experienced them, but others pale into hazy shades of dullness and even to oblivion. I once heard an old preacher say, ‘My memory is as good as it always has been, but I am having increasing difficulty with my recall faculties!’ I guess most of us may be able to recognise that, whatever age we may be!
Trips down memory lane can be exciting and stimulating or depressing and frustrating, depending upon the measure of our memory loss. What are your earliest memories? The first thing I can remember is skipping down the garden path when I was maybe 3 or 4 years of age singing, ‘Happy birthday to me!’ Many of my earliest memories involve the church where my parents were active members. I remember sitting on my father’s lap on the back row during a service, playing with the chain of his fob watch, then opening and pulling off the back of the watch! I was very young at the time!
Maybe you can remember aspects of church life, or Sunday School, or school assemblies? Perhaps you can remember the words of hymns that you sang, or even scripture verses that you learned? Over the last few years, as I have led the services for older people in the Care Home, I have been so blessed to see and to hear folk joining in with the singing. They evidently remembered the words of the hymns from times long ago, and now, even though some were unable to read or comprehend the words on the hymn sheet, they sang with gusto. Somewhere, deep in their memory are the words that they sang decades ago when they were children or young people. Maybe you are one of those folk?
Do you know the truth and relevance of those words today? Do they mean anything to you?
The Lord God tells us in His Word, the Bible:
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth … before the days of trouble come”
To which you may answer, that it does not apply to you because you no longer consider yourself young! But a few verses later we read:
“Remember Him – before the silver cord is severed or the golden bowl is broken
… and the dust returns to the ground it came from and the spirit returns to God Who gave it”
It is clear from everyday life that if we forget to do some things, then very often trouble or even disaster can follow. Maybe we forget to lock the door when we leave home; or leave the gas alight under a boiling pan; or forget a lighted candle near inflammable material; or forget which side of the road to drive on. There are so many examples of what can and does happen when we forget.
As individuals, as a nation, and worldwide, we could keep ourselves from multiple disasters and troubles if we remember the Lord and His Word, and follow His commands.
Trouble always comes when we:
“forget the Lord our Maker, Who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth”
“This is what the Lord says – your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you what is best for you, Who directs you in the way you should go.
If only you had paid attention to My commands, your peace would have been like a river,
your well-being like the waves of the sea.’”
“You have forgotten God your Saviour; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress”
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”
How wonderful is that? Do you know the Lord God as your loving Heavenly Father?
Are you remembering Him day by day, living in and enjoying His love and grace?
Ron Brickman