I Remembered You!

Memory

Two of the most common concepts in the bible are forgetfulness and remembrance. Thematically, it’s more like: when we forget God, our lives spiral downward, but when we remember Him, we are restored. This pattern is played out over and over again from the Old Testament to New. “Why does He even love them?” my son questioned when talking about how the nation of Israel kept falling away. We were discussing God’s constant blessing and forgiveness. The reality is His memory is better than ours. God never forgets to hold on to us – we forget to hold on to Him. “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.” Jonah 2:7

Children

I was reading Jonah’s prayer when this ebb-and-flow relationship occurred to me. Jonah was running away from God’s purpose – His command. It wasn’t that Jonah was incapable of preaching the gospel in Ninevah, he allowed his own understanding of the situation and insecurity to sway him. We look at our circumstances and think they are too big for us while forgetting that nothing is too big for God. Jonah ran, sailed away, and was swallowed up by a whale before he prayed, “I remembered you.” 

Why Wait ‘Til You’re In The Whale?

Why do we wait until we are hopelessly stuck—already in the whale—before we cry out to God? It would have been easier to ask God for the strength and courage to help Jonah preach the word in Ninevah. Instead, Jonah was angry. He convinced himself that they didn’t deserve to be saved, which led to him convincing himself that the place was too dangerous for him because they were too ungodly. God wants to be remembered, called on, relied on, and trusted. God knew the whole plan – Jonah didn’t. But it’s so easy to feel like we know better, isn’t it?

Children

If you’ve ever had children, you know that there are times you tell them not to do something because you understand the consequences they don’t. When they are small, it might be staying away from a hot stove or Iron, when they’re older, the things that can hurt them are way bigger and harder to monitor. Sometimes, our kids cry out for help after getting into the very scrape you warned them about. You love them, so you help them. But sometimes the consequences of what they’ve done leave them covered with the whale’s puke. Just like Jonah. I used to balk at being called a “child” in relation to God. Children rarely recognize the childish things they do as childish. I get it now because I’ve done a lot of forgetting and remembering of my own.

Getting Back On Your Feet

The interesting thing about Jonah’s prayer (Jonah 2) is that once he has come to terms with where he is in his life and his current circumstances, he remembers God and prays. Immediately after Jonah agrees to do what God commanded and cries out that “Salvation comes from the LORD,” God commands the whale to vomit Jonah onto dry land. How amazing is that?! We may go off the trail purposefully. Perhaps we avoid our calling for a while or get distracted. But, the moment we remember God, he gets us back on track. Sure we may have to wash off some “puke” from our bad decisions, but He doesn’t drop us in the middle of the ocean. He brings us to a place where we can get our footing – dry land.

So, if you’re ever feeling like you went the wrong way, or missed God’s purpose for your life – call on Jesus. He’ll get you back on track.