Remember

I know it is important to remember things.  You have to be able to find your way home, what your name is, what your allergic to.  But beyond that why do we have a memory?  What is it for?  I think memorials are important to God.  When the Hebrew people crossed the Jordan River into their promised land.  God instructed them to take 12 stones from the river as they were crossing it and make an alter by the banks of the river as a memorial (Joshua 4:7).  He wanted them to remember what happened there.  He wanted them to teach their children. He wanted them to remember who He was and what He did for them. When Jesus took the cup at His last passover feast he said, "Do this, in rememberance of me" (Luke 22:19).  And so we do... or do we?

I have a box full of sweet things that remind me of my children.  Pretty little dresses and shoes.  Blankets that their grandmother made and priceless handmade trinkets, little expressions of their admiration and love. As they start to have children of their own I have started to give up at least the clothes and the blankets.  They are of no use in a box! But many of the things that meant so much to me as I packed them away, here a pair of overalls, there a pretty dress that looked so precious on but all too soon was grown out of.  I realize that those little people grew and became something you can't really encase in a dress or blanket.  These things mark a time in history but they tell nothing of the people they once clothed.

Raising children was so much fun! I loved watching as they developed their own personalities and sense of humors.  They are sweet individuals with great hearts and amazing minds.  The things I really want to remember you can't capture with a picture or a hand print or a dress. You had to live with them day in and day out to really get the whole picture of who they are...and even then there is more every day to discover! They are way more than anything I could put in a box to remember them by. And now these trinkets seem empty in comparison.

I'm thinking the same goes with God and Jesus.  I'm thinking that God wasn't really into a pile of rocks.  I don't think He wanted us to spend our days staring at them.  I think they are to remind us of Him... really Him.  Not that He did something as much as why He did something. The Hebrew people spend years, day in and day out with God as their guide and their provider.  What exactly are they meant to remember? I'm thinking that Jesus meant more when He said, "Do this in remembrance of me" than that we should eat what He ate that day...Jesus too spent years with His disciples, day in and day out, teaching and modeling a nature that they took years and then some to comprehend. He wants us to know Him... to get to know Him... to really know Him.  To remember who He is, that He will return... and why.  

Sometimes it good simply to remember.