"Remember in the darkness what you have learned in the light."
Pastor Brad was talking about memorials, how we always have visible memorials for huge calamities like the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, all that sort.
But it's also good to have memorials for the individual things that God has done for us, the personal blessings and miracles throughout our lives. It could be as big as car crashes and robberies, and it could be as small as a final exam gone right, against all odds.
We could write it down in our journals, have a piece of something in our treasure box to remind us of God's works in our lives,
something, so we won't forget.
Coz we tend to. We could experience a great deal of God's blessings one day, and few weeks or months later when something trips us up, we throw our hands up and ask GOd WHERE ARE YOU?
It's so important to remember. I'm not bragging, but I always knew that. I keep journal after journal, everytime something happens I just wanna jot it down and leave the exact details onto the pages, so I'll never forget how it felt when God's hands are obviously at work. I keep lil tokens of memory and paste em in my journals, so I'll always remember.
At times I do think like, naw how can I possibly forget bout this? I don't hafta write down everything... but then when I read back on my older stuff, and I'm sometimes surprised at why I don't quite remember some of the stuff I wrote down, only a vague memory left.
Memories, experiences are all part of God's plan. We learn from the past, we appreciate God's plans for us by reflecting on the past. Things are usually hard to grasp when you're smack in the middle of it, but if you choose to reflect positively, God's fingerprints are all over it. We probably will never completely understand why God does the things He does, but we can get a better grasp of His masterplan by learning from hindsight.
Just because things are over, it doesn't mean we have to forget.
I don't believe in dwelling in the past though. That's not what I'm saying at all. I just think that we shouldn't just sweep our past under the carpet and not deal with it till the huge lump on the carpet trip you up sometime in the future. Dust collect. Hurts double.
It's all about balance. As long as we have our sights and hearts focused on God and His plans for us, and find comfort and strength in His faithfulness and unfailing character (which we can find examples of from our past experiences, naturally *bEam*), we can be better-equipped and more effective servants for His kingdom.
