On November 30, 2019 By Joseph Bailey In Counseling/Piety, Theology 2

Forget Not All His Benefits

Remembering is an essential part of thanksgiving. A forgetful person is someone who most likely struggles with ingratitude as well. And while you cannot give thanks for what you do not remember, there is a deeper meaning to the act of remembering than simply storing and recalling bits of information.

As we come through another Thanksgiving holiday, learning how to remember and forget rightly will cultivate the rich heart-soil where gratitude and the grace that accompanies it can grow in all the various weather conditions of life.

Remembering that Leads to Gratitude

In Psalm 25, we find King David asking Yahweh to remember, and what he asks him to remember first is striking. He asks God to remember Himself.

Remember your mercy, O YAHWEH, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.
Psalm 25:6

If we are to understand what it means for us to remember, we must first look at what it means for the Triune God Himself to remember. It is significant that David calls upon the name of Yahweh. This is God’s memorial name as revealed to Moses from the burning bush.

Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.
Exodus 3:13-15

Therefore, to call upon the name of Yahweh is to call upon the God who is. His name perfectly encompasses and reflects His character. And His character is perfectly expressed in His acts. David understood this. David believed this with his whole heart. He knew that God’s remembering is a commitment to act. Yahweh sets before Himself the reality of who He is and responds in a way consistent with that reality. His name is a memorial name.

We see God establishing these memorials throughout Scripture, culminating with the Eucharist. Each one established by God that He may remember and act.

I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant…
Genesis 9:13-15

Even more, God does this for our benefit. We receive the blessings of God’s remembrance.

Think about the nature of the memorials He established. He chose to give memorials that we, as His people, could see and touch and taste- rainbows, rocks, bread and wine. I think He does this because we need to remember that God remembers. We need to have set before us on a regular basis the absolute certainty that as God remembers, He also acts; and He always acts in accord with who He is, what He has done, and the promises He has made.

Only in this way will we see and interpret the world around us rightly and find gratitude deeply rooted in our souls.

In George MacDonald’s excellent book, Phantastes, the main character, Anados, gains the ability to enter into Fairy Land on his 21st birthday, a detail of no little significance. Macdonald has Anados enter into a world of wonder and beauty and delight at the very point at which he becomes a man. Moving from childhood to maturity, he now has eyes to see the world around him differently, more accurately.

We tend to think of imagination and wonder as something strong in a child that gradually diminishes as we mature into adulthood. Innocent naivete succumbs to harsh reality. When actually the imagination and wonder of childhood should mature and grow as it is mixed with, not replaced by, wisdom and experience.

That’s because the imagination is not the ability to make something up that’s not real. It is the ability to see a greater reality beyond and often in spite of the perceived reality of our senses.

For us to remember as God remembers, our vision must be enlarged. Our imaginations must grow up so they see through rather than at what we see and experience every day. This means living more self-consciously before the face of God.

Remembering has much more to do with imagination than memory. If we are only grateful for those things that have the appearance of blessing or good in our lives, then our gratitude will be shallow, occasional, and oftentimes misplaced. The Spirit empowers us with a holy imagination to see His purpose in the chaos, His beauty in the broken, His goodness in the pain, and His light in the unanswered questions.

For Anodos, it is only when his shadow, a symbol of his sinful self, falls on an object of wonder does he see it as common, childish, cheap, and of little interest. We live in a valley of shadows. We often allow the shadows of sin and self to fall upon the circumstances of our lives and strip away the glorious reality behind them. Rocks in our path cause our faith to stumble when they should be memorial stones of God’s past faithfulness. We need the “light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ” to enliven our imaginations again.

I don’t struggle to remember the verse, “Children are a blessing from the Lord.” Believe me, I’ve quoted it and had it quoted to me many times. But in the midst of family life, there are many times that I look at my children and do not see little blessings. Why? It’s not because I forgot what God says about them. It’s not because they have ceased being those blessings.

It’s because, in that moment, the shadow of my own selfishness has fallen over my children and I no longer see them as God sees them. Gratitude is swallowed up with grumbling.

I know that Proverbs tells me that an excellent wife is worth far more than precious jewels. But how easy it is to see time alone, or a late night at the office, or my favorite show as the more valuable of the two. My shadow has fallen over my wife and I no longer see her as God sees her.

Forgetting that Leads to Grace

Secondly, David asks God to not remember. The psalm begins with an invocation to remember one thing then asks Him not to remember something else.

Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions;
Psalm 25:7a

The two are not unrelated. In fact, I would argue that it is the very act of God remembering who He is that enables Him to not remember who David was in his sin. To forget, as Scripture defines it, is not the same as a failure to recall where we put the keys or how many times 5 goes into 60. Obviously, David was not asking God to forget who he was. He is asking God to remember not his sin by remembering who He is, what He has done, and the promises He has made.

How can God look at me with all my sin fully exposed and not remember my sin? How can He, as David prays, remember not my sin, but remember me? With a little help from the Nicene Creed, let me remind you what He remembers:

He remembers who Jesus is- begotten of the Father before all worlds, light of light, very God of very God,

He remembers what Jesus has done – Who, for us men and our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father;

He remembers the covenant that has been made- the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, one holy catholic and apostolic Church, one baptism for the remission of sins, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen!)

God remembers not our sins because He remembers us in Christ; those sins are eclipsed by His grace. They no longer define us. They are no longer our reality. The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ ^a has dispelled the shadows through which we once saw the world.

So we also forget by remembering. When we forgive one another, the reality of another’s sin against us is eclipsed by the reality of our own forgiveness. We see that person the way that God sees us. We cannot put those sins, especially those hurtful sins, out of our memory. But we can put before us the greater truth, the greater forgiveness. This is grace.

Grace sees beyond what’s right in front of us. Grace comes in the remembering of the gospel in a way that covers the offense. Love covers a multitude of sins. ^b

Gratitude and Grace

How do we live lives of gratitude and grace? We remember. From the rainbow of Genesis 6, to the memorial stones of Joshua 4, to His very name itself in Exodus 3, God has remembered and called His people to remember. We as the Church have been given the means to live in that greater reality.

We are the rainbows. As James Jordan says, “Christians are the rainbow warbow of the Prince of Peace, bringing peace to the world of humanity in the gospel.” ^c

We are the memorial stones. All of us, “as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” ^d

We have been given His name in baptism, and a place at His table each Lord’s Day.

As we talk together, let us be ever mindful to hold up the gospel light to one another. We need to see His glory and goodness spilled all over our crazy lives. I don’t simply need to be reminded that children are a blessing. I need fathers and mothers who talk to their children and about their children in a way that shows it to be true on their worst days, so I will remember on my worst days.

As we walk together, let us be forgetful of one another’s faults as we remember the grace we ourselves have received. Let us be gracious and hospitable and welcoming to others because we cannot get over the reality that we have a place at the King’s table.

We as the body of Christ are the memorials, both to one another, and to the world.