A Pause to Remember..
Today we are taking a pause from our look at the book of Ephesians to remember. One of the characteristics of mankind is the tendency to forget. Sometimes we forget because the pain of remembering is too great. Other times we don’t remember because we feel as if somehow we have gone past those hard places, never to return again. Neither situation is altogether good. The feeling of pain is also the feeling that can experience joy. Without "feeling" we would wander through life with neither pain nor joy. And feeling as if difficult places will never rise again is to live as a fool. As long as we liver there will be victories and challenges.
The point is to utilize that part of the brain that allows us to remember. Even God remembers:
4 So God heard their groaning and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel). 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice [of them] and was concerned about them [knowing all, understanding all, remembering all].Exodus 2:24,25 (AMP)
Thank God for God remembering. The children of Israel had been in captivity for four hundred years. They had travailed seemingly with no end in sight; and then God, remembered…
One of the major ills in this country today is the feeling of "entitlement"; a feeling that we are deserving of this or that. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to achieve a victory after aiming for it, to feel as if somehow you are being cheated out of something, even if you don’t try is…well, you fill in the blank! Every privilege we enjoy in this nation came at a price that someone had to pay. While mot of them who paid the highest price have gone on, we can at least take a moment and remember the price they paid.
On this Memorial Day, set aside in this nation to remember the countless numbers of people who gave their life that we might all enjoy a freedom and a liberty such as the world has not known until now. And we should remember not just the ones who sacrificed their lives, but the families who lost so much when losing their loved one. Yes, there are still injustices in this world and in this nation, yet for all that it is or isn’t -there is no nation that experiences the degree of freedom that we have as a people at-large. There are still battles to be fought, there are still victories to be won – it is in remembering what we’ve gained so far that we have courage to fight on, and more importantly to pray to the God who also remembers those in bondage.
Maria