Remembering God in Our Day-to-Day Busyness
Remembering God seems to be a bit of a lost art today as our busy schedules keep us moving from one thing to the next. How can we pause and remember?
In our Instant Pot world, we have learned to shave time from every task because we are people in a hurry. But knowing God doesn’t happen overnight. Part of the beauty of knowing God is that He is far more than our minds can possibly bear understanding.
God is unknowable and yet He invites His people over and over again throughout Scripture to know Him because of His steadfast love for them. These are His ways, who He is, and how He loves. We need to know all of it.
We Need to Know All of Who God Is
A beautiful and heartbreaking demonstration of this invitation throughout Scripture comes to us via the story of the Israelites. In Deuteronomy 6 we meet Moses as he is teaching the Israelites in preparation for their journey into the Promised Land. He is calling for their obedience, that they may fear the Lord. “You and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statues and his commandments” (Deut. 6:2).
The forethought here should catch our attention and give us pause. It’s countercultural. The world seeks to orient us toward this present moment, but God supersedes the present moment with a hope and a future, a vision far beyond our present moment. Did you catch that? This is not only wisdom for generations; this is a wisdom that requires a response. God is giving His people truth that must be tended and remembered and passed on.
And because he has led these people, and he knows these people, Moses tells them, “You must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today.” Wholeheartedly, Moses tells us. Commit yourself to this, to knowing and loving God.
But this God of the past, present, and future doesn’t stop there. He tells His people they must pass this truth on, to teach their children and talk about it all the time. So when the bounty of God’s blessing is upon them, they do not forget. “Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear”(Deut. 6:12). Do you see it, friend? God is saying in it and through it and after it, in plenty and in want, you must remember me.
Settle Here
In her book Disciplines of a Godly Woman, Barbara Hughes shares a beautiful story of a young woman who had newly come to know Christ. Carol was her name. Carol immediately joined a women’s Bible study and sat, with her borrowed Bible, next to a group of women who had spent years there. Carol mostly listened as the pros answered questions and discussed, but eventually, when the conversation quieted, she summoned her courage and spoke up. “I found the most wonderful verse last night!”
Her words tumbled out with clumsy, pure delight. She carefully thumbed to the place marked in her Bible and began to read aloud to the rest of the group with all the awe and reverence she believed the Scripture deserved. “For God . . . so loved . . . the world . . . that . . . He . . . gave . . . His one . . . and only . . . Son . . . that whoever . . . believes . . . in him . . . shall not perish . . . but have eternal life.”
Fresh Eyes
Can you imagine Carol—so new and young in the faith—finding this verse that just seemed to capture all of what she finally understood to be true? Carol’s unadulterated awe for the gospel was contagious, and every woman around her was humbled and reminded. This is our God. Do we remember?
We all desperately need the reminder of the treasure we hold, the gift of grace that has been afforded to us. This is what we must pay attention to. We need to see the Giver rightly, again and again. He is unchanging. And these deep and vast wells of remembrance exist for us to drink from, that we might not only be reminded, but that we might once again pay attention.
Reflection:
When was the last time you got distracted while trying to connect with God? Make a plan today to keep that same distraction from coming up the next time you try to connect with God.
To learn more about remembering God in our everyday lives, check out the book But Then She Remembered: How to Give God Your Full Attention in a Distracted Worldby Katie Westenberg. If you’ve ever felt like you don’t have enough time to focus on God, this book provides you with the Scripture and resources you need to become un-distractable and grow closer to God.
