Thursday, September 17, 2009

God Remembered

Noah was alone with only his closest family, floating above the watery grave that was the rest of the world. When God had shut him in the ark, it had taken seven days for the rain to start. Noah must have wondered at that point, “What now?” Now the ark had saved him, for the time being. But, as he sailed over the corpses of his neighbors, brothers, sisters, friends, and everything he knew, he had to be thinking again, “Now what?” Then Genesis chapter eight says, “And God remembered Noah…”

Abraham was looking out over the plains toward where Sodom and Gomorrah used to be. Now he saw only smoke rising like out of a furnace. As he looked upon the judgment and wrath God had rained down, he must have wondered, “What about my nephew?” It surely seemed that no one could have escaped that awful flame. But Genesis 19 says, “God remembered Abraham…”

The Hebrews were in bondage to the Egyptians. They were forced to struggle under heavy burdens. They did not control even the destinies of their own children. Their one advocate in the palace had fled the country after he committed a murder. He had been the closest thing they had known to hope in nearly four-hundred years, and now even that was gone. As they labored hopelessly under the sun, they must have wondered, “Has God forgotten us?” Then, Exodus 2:24 says, “God heard their groaning, and God remembered…”

When we are lost and don’t know what to do next, when we wonder if the good perish with the evil, when we think we are forgotten, God remembers. When we wonder, “What now?” when the world around us is going up in smoke, when we haven’t heard from God in what seems like ages, God remembers. No matter where we find ourselves, God remembers. It is not because He ever forgot; it is because He was waiting on time to catch up with His plan. He has marked us out for a purpose, and He remembers. And, no matter how many times we forget, God remembers.