“Remind me to do that,” my husband
requests.
“No problem!” is my standard reply.
“I've got an app for that.” And then I add his request to the
multi-page list, grateful that my phone's memory is so much better
than mine. We use that app for everything in our lives these days,
from telling us where we need to go and when, to what to bring, to
even what we wanted to say to each other along the way!
If my phone is my memory in the
physical realm, it's the Holy Spirit's job in the spiritual world to
bring back to my remembrance all the things I tend to forget. Some
items on the list are indeed things God wants me to do, places He
wants me to go, and words He wants me to speak. But mostly the Holy
Spirit's job is to remind me of what God has already done. Psalm
103:2 tells us to “forget not all His benefits.” And then
it lists just a few of them...forgiveness, healing, redemption,
compassion, provision, justice...in a list even longer than the one
on my phone.
The list of what God has done for
mankind as a whole is enough to inspire an outpouring of praise. But
it's the things He's done for me personally that pull at my heart and
draw me into a closer embrace with my Creator. Answers to prayers
that only His ears have heard, desires of my heart still unspoken yet
granted, jokes we've shared, and experiences we've been through
together...these are the moments that make up a loving relationship
with God. And yet it seems that they are unintentionally dismissed
from our memory almost as quickly as they happen. We need that Holy
Spirit nudge to suddenly see God's face turned our way, His eyes
meeting ours as He says, “I remember the conversation we had about
that – do you?”
We tend to forget that there is another
Kingdom in operation in our lives. So much of God's goodness and His
many answers to our prayers – the evidence of His care - we
attribute to mere coincidence, and in doing so we lose more than just
an opportunity to give God the glory and praise He deserves. We steal
from that moment its power to transform our lives with the acute
awareness of God's love.
Recently I saw a video of two little
kids who apparently had long begged their parents for a dog. One day
as they worked together on their homework at the kitchen table, their
father walked through the room, setting a box down on the floor
beside the table in passing. The kids continued talking and working
without noticing that a puppy was peeking up at them over the edge of
the box. Suddenly the little girl caught a glimpse of it. She froze
and stared at the dog for the longest time as she tried to process
what she was seeing. Then she turned to her father and said, “Is
that for us? You bought us a dog? It's really for us?”
Surprisingly, she then covered her face with her hands and broke out
in tears. She didn't initially go near the dog, instead she simply
stood there crying, repeatedly lifting her face from her hands to
choke out the words, “Thank you! Thank you so much!” Even when
she was seated on the floor with her brother, the puppy between them,
as she reached out to touch it for the first time, she stopped and
was overwhelmed again, her heart and eyes overflowing with grateful
tears. Clearly the moment wasn't about a puppy at that point; she
was simply overwhelmed by her father's love.
I want to be that girl. And so I look
to the Holy Spirit for help in transforming me from my thoughtless
and greedy self into the thankful and grateful girl I long to be.
“Remind me!,” I plead, and He does so, over and over again
through the course of the day, that God is thinking about me, loving
me, and blessing me in more ways than I ever thought possible.
The girl in the video had yet to even
pet the answer to her prayers when her dad came over and enveloped
her in a loving hug, so touched was he by her response to his gift.
Maybe God has the Holy Spirit connect the gifts He gives us with our
past conversations, not so much because that remembrance brings us
joy...but because of the joy those connections bring to Him.
“But these things I
have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told
you of them...”
(John 16:4 NKJV)
I would love to see that video; it sounds wonderful. And of course, so thankful to our heavenly Father for all of *His* wonderful gifts!
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