Hopeful Remembrance

"I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago." Psalm 77:11



Now that the New Year is upon us, our minds often drift in opposite directions, both backwards as we reflect upon the past year and forward as we anticipate what 2010 may have in store. It is a time to remember and a time to hope. Yet for some it has become a time to regret and a time to fear. Instead of relishing the highlights of the past 365 days, some often dwell on the mistakes and remember the things we wish we would forget. With the burdens of 2009 in tow, we wonder why 2010 would be any different. As each year passes, we have become jaded; forget half-full, the glass is empty. If we view our lives as a story, they have turned from comedy to tragedy. What ever happened to the happily ever after? As we look to 2010, we wonder if it might be just a little better, a little brighter. Yet for some, they see no reason to hope and that is because they have forgotten how to remember.


Now I'm not saying we forget the bad, because that too is important. We are not to pretend the glass is full when it is most certainly not. What I am saying, is that we remember the whole story, not just incidents. This takes time, humility, and honesty. Time and again the scriptures, even God Himself, beckons us to remember. This may seem like an odd command in our results-driven culture. "Why waste time in contemplation while my to-do list only gets longer?" I do not pretend to know the depth of God's intentions, but I do believe He has given us a reason to look back: so that we can look forward.


I, like I imagine so many of you, have experienced both bad and good times in 2009. This was an exceptionally difficult and full filling year for me. I preached a funeral on my twenty-fifth birthday, I moved fourteen hours away from my home, family, friends, and church, and my wife lost two grandparents. It was a hard year. But many wonderful things happened as well. I graduated college (finally) with honors, I was able to find a great job within days of moving to Colorado, I have become closer with Michala's family, I have found a wonderful community of faith in Adullam, and best of all I witnessed the birth of my daughter. Truly, the Lord gives and He takes away. Yet to truly understand 2009, I need to remember 1984-2008. 2009 only makes sense when I realize it is simply one chapter in a rather long book.


Some of you are aware of my story and others less so. But my story is yours. I made a lot mistakes, hurt a lot of people. Drugs and alcohol became my gods among many other vices. I often found myself in a lie, a daze, depression, and even jail. At age 21, I had no reason to hope for a better future, I was utterly and hopelessly lost. Yet unexplainably, God remembered me. He looked beyond my past and saw Calvary. He saw more than my sin and He gave me a future and a hope. In the blink of an eye my life changed dramatically. As the old hymn goes, "I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see." People who know me now, are astonished at my past and those who knew me then are equally astonished. God is indeed a redemptive God. My life is simply one of countless testimonies of this redemption.


In the four years since that redemption, God has proven not to be done with me yet. I'm sober, graduated, married, employed, and hopeful. Life is indeed good. But sometimes, life seems even harder on this side. With these gifts comes responsibilities. And my great fear is that I will fail, that that selfish drunkard will take back over. I fear that my baby will not know a godly daddy. That my wife will wonder what she ever saw in me and worst of all, that God too would wish to forget me. It is when this fear takes hold that I most need to remember.


God pleads for the Israelites to remember His deeds. That they were slaves and He freed them. That they were lost in the wilderness and He brought them home. That they were hungry and He fed them. And their story is our story. Remember what the Lord has done. You were drunk and he brought sobriety. You were lonely and brought community. You were lost and He found you. We remember these things because they are proof that God will always see us through. Even if we are in the midst of turmoil and see no way out, we must remember that it is not the end of the story. God remembers us and because of this remembrance we can hope. So that when life seems hopeless, we know better.


"We have survived you and I. Maybe that is at the heart of our remembering. After twenty years, forty years, sixty years or eighty, we have made it to this year, this day. We needn't have made it. There were times we never thought we would and nearly didn't. There were times we almost hoped we wouldn't, were ready to give the whole thing up....Faint of heart as we are, a love beyond our power to love has kept our hearts alive." -Frederick Buechner


We can look forward in 2010, because we have looked back and remembered what the Lord has done. Hope and remembrance are interwoven, working together. This is the beauty of the recent Advent season, we remember the Lord's coming at Christmas and hope for His final coming. So, may you take the time to look back on your story and remember both the good and bad so that we may dream all the more fully about the happily ever after.