I am in the process of digitizing and organizing decades of photos going back some 62 years to my childhood in Hong Kong, and then the years of travel to many places in the world. There are black and whites with their negatives, color slides, color prints and of course, more recently, the digital photos. Every one of the thousands of pictures I am looking at bring back a memory. Of the thousands of pictures I have taken in over 60 countries, I can remember the exact place and circumstances of the photo. That is the power of memory.

The thing about memories is that they can fade or become forgotten if we don’t work on keeping them alive. This is especially true in our spiritual lives. As the Children of Israel were about to enter the promised land, Moses takes the people on a mini retreat to remind them of all of God’s goodness as well as the lessons they had learned in the forty years of wilderness wandering the hard way. 

And then he gives them this warning. Deuteronomy 4:9: “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” 

Moses is so right that spiritual lessons, the good things God has done, the blessings He has given, and the prayers that He has answered can easily slip from our hearts. We forget and our forgetting lessons our faith and gratitude to Him. That is why I journal nearly every day. It gives me a chance to record God’s goodness, my prayers, and the longings of my heart. When I go back and look at what I journaled, even years later, it is like looking at one of my photos. I say “I remember that.” It brings me back to a day and time when I had a need and when God showed up. That reminder of His faithfulness in the past becomes the faith that I need in the present. 

All of us have different ways of remembering the past. The point Moses wants us to remember is that we need to remember. And we need to pass those lessons on to our children whose faith can be strengthened by our stories of His faithfulness. “Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” God’s work through generations of family is powerful and faith building.

Today, take some time to simply remember what God has done in your life in the past. Maybe jot some thoughts down and thank Him for His faithfulness. And always remember to remember. Don’t let His past work in your life slip from your heart as long as you live. 

Father, thank you for your faithfulness in my life. Thank you. Help me to remember to remember so that I never let your goodness slip from my heart. Amen.