Remember

by Julia
from Virtuous Daughters, August/September 2020~Volume 20, Number 3

How often does God answer a specific prayer and you rejoice over it? Maybe your excitement bubbles into a desire to tell everyone you know of the amazing work of God in your life by answering that prayer. How many times have you faced something big and suddenly your faith-o-meter plummets?
 
“This is impossible,” you may think.... Of course, we know God will never fail us, but even if we do not directly admit it to ourselves, our thought patterns can reflect this false belief. It is easy to grow discouraged. What can we do to avoid this pitfall? Remember.

Remember what? Remember God’s faithfulness in the past. As I read through the book of Deuteronomy, I am noticing how often Moses commands the Israelites to “remember” and “not forget” the mighty acts of God in their history. But why is it so important for them to remember? Here are few verses that give some insight into this (my emphasis added below):
 
“So I said to you: ‘Don’t be terrified or afraid of [the Amorites – a people larger and taller than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens]! The LORD your God who goes before you will fight for you, just as you saw Him do for you in Egypt. And you saw in the wilderness how the LORD your God carried you as a man carries his son all along the way you traveled until you reached this place.’” ~Deuteronomy 1:29-31
 
“Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don’t slip from your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren.” ~Deuteronomy 4:9
 
“If you say to yourself, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I drive them out?’ do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt: the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, the strong hand and outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you fear.” ~Deuteronomy 7:17-19
 
One reason to remember the past is to build our future faith. When we look back at what God has brought us through, we remember what He is capable of. The Israelites faced enemies far greater than them in number, physical size, and strength. How could they possibly drive them out? “Look back,” Moses admonished them. Who had God delivered them from in the first place? Egypt! How? With a strong hand and an outstretched arm. With miracles. Signs and wonders. He had brought them out in great power. So how would they face the giants of the land of Canaan and drive them out? By the same God who had delivered them in the past.
 
What does remembering have to do with this month’s topic of prayer? I would like to give a few personal examples of how these go hand in hand. For years, my sister has struggled with countless health struggles, one after the other, often with no answers illuminating the cause of the issue. Couple this with severe depression and that makes for some dark valleys – not only for her, but for her family and friends. It is an awful feeling to wonder every day for weeks, months, if she will last another day. We have followed countless trails hoping to find answers to her health, but these trails turn out to be only dead ends that fling us back to square one and crush what little hope we had. Many times, I have wondered if this would be the end and she would not make it through. Sometimes I think we have hit rock-bottom and it turns out there was more bottom to hit and we fall lower. “Surely this rock-bottom is more impossible than the last,” I think. I have cried out to God, pleading for the life of my sister.... He reminds me of the other rock-bottoms she has hit and how He pulled her out of them in His way, in His time....If He was faithful then, I can trust Him to be faithful now. And to this point God has carried my sister and my family through some of the darkest valleys we have ever encountered. When I hit rock-bottom with my sister and doubts creep into my mind, remembering the past encourages me to have faith in God and hope in the present.
 
Dark valleys are not the only areas of life when remembering relates to prayer. At my new job I have a self-proclaimed agnostic coworker. Through the months she has shared with me that one major reason she does not believe in God is because the world is so messed up. When she explained this to me, I merely listened to her argument and did not try to refute it. As weeks and months passed, I thought a lot about the topic and began to understand why I still believe in God even though the world is messed up. I knew the topic tied directly into the Gospel and I wanted to share this with her. I did not want to be guilty of being someone she knew to be a Christian and saw a difference in, but who never shared the truth. But as the time drew near for me to leave again for college, I began to realize my time to share the Gospel with her was getting closer and closer to being lost altogether. As I worried about the time passing by, God reminded me of last summer when I faced a very similar predicament at a different job. Last year God had amazingly answered prayer and opened opportunities to share the Gospel with a coworker just weeks before I would return to college. And guess what? As I prayed for my present situation, I tried to pray with faith, remembering the God I serve, and God did give me the chance to share the Gospel with my agnostic coworker!
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When we face a challenge so big our faith-o-meter plummets, we may be tempted to doubt that God will hear our prayers, doubt that God can work on our behalf, or we may be tempted to not pray at all. When we face such temptations, we need to remember how He has answered prayer in the past. If we just rely on our fallible mind, sometimes it is difficult to remember. So, what do we do? One answer is to start keeping God’s answers to your prayers in a place where you can look back and be reminded of His faithfulness. For me, that means keeping a prayer journal. I have one journal where I record my prayers in full (which helps me to slow down and focus when I pray), and I have a second journal where I am starting to record a summary of my requests and leave a space below each one entitled ‘date answered.’ When we do petition God, sometimes His answer is ‘no.’ I purpose to record His ‘no’s as well as His ‘yes’s in my journal. Either way, when I read through my prayer journal, I am reminded that God is still actively working. He does hear my cries. He does move mountains I cower beneath and pull me out of pits too deep to scale. Maybe you are facing a sin or weakness that causes you to despair. “Can I ever change?” you wonder. Think through the past. Has God rooted out sin and grown your walk with Him before? Maybe you face an impossible, unknown future. Maybe your mountain is affording college or knowing which direction to take in a major decision. Think through the past. Has God provided for you? Has He guided your steps and made your way clear? Recalling the way God answered our prayers in the past helps build our faith as we seek God in our present difficulties. As you begin this next week, I encourage you to remember and record what God has done for you before and what He is doing in your life right now. Have faith as you seek Him and let your heart praise Him continually for His faithfulness!