over and over again

How easily I forget.

I’m like an Israelite. You know, the people who complained when they, time and time again, deemed God’s miraculous provision insufficient. The people who forgot God’s work of salvation. The people who forsook God over and over again, even after He sent Judge after Judge to save them.

I always read those stories and got frustrated. How do they forget so easily? How do they forsake God every time, after God shows His power and His love over and over again?

Now I know.

I’m like the Israelites in three ways:

1. I’m a child of God. God knows me. And He loves me anyway. He chose me. The God of the Universe loves me. Kind of awesome. Ok, really awesome.

2. God saved me. God brought His people out slavery. He found them. Think about it…the Israelites were pretty much goners. They were enslaved, a nation morphed into another culture, serving the people, watching their children die at the hands of the Egyptians, and wondering how they ended up where they were. They were lost. But God had never left. He redeemed them. He did the same for me. Once lost in sin, I’ve been found. Once a goner, I have a new life. A life of freedom.

3. I forget. I complain about my current situation, forgetting that God is working in EVERY situation for a plan I don’t understand, a hope that’s beyond me: a beautiful future. And yet, I forget. Over and over again.

I don’t spend time with Him, I fall back into old habits of sin…I forget.

How do you remember? What do you look to as markers in your life that remind you - no matter where you are, what situation you’re in, what you’re struggling with, what you fear, or what you can’t get over - that even though you’ve forgotten God many a time, He has never forgotten you? And that He never will?