Whatever the tradition, there is something really significant about the importance of remembering.
The memory is bombarded with every new experience and event in life. Certain patterns can get the brain slowly being shaped by the immediate to such a degree that it can lose touch with key points that establishes the identity. That can especially be dangerous if the patterns reinforcing the present circumstances are doing a job on you.
For example, you were set free from circumstances that had enslaved you. That can take on a whole range of ways, but the good news is that you’ve been set free. Not only have you been liberated from the oppressor, you’ve been given a new relationship with the Liberator who over time allows you to see what it is you’ve been set free for.
That initial learning period of the purpose of freedom cultivates new habits and touchstones. It establishes something revitalising, renewing and refreshing to your sense of life.
That period is necessary, though, for there could be a season that arises that is almost arid and sparse in comparison. For whatever reason, the journey could take you to a place where you’re not seeing those sources of refreshment readily available. In that stage of the journey the appearance of lack and scarcity can become in itself oppressive. It could imply things that threaten the new that you experienced. Not only could it threaten that new life, it can also entice you back into subjection again to forces and views that were never designed for your good.
This is why remembering can be such a gift in those circumstances. Remembering how you’ve been liberated. Remembering that you are now free. Remembering the new remains and is greater than any old that can seek to get its hold on you again. Keeping those things in mind and rehearsing those realities can provide something for you that can soothe and restore just when it looks like things could become too much for you.
The power to remember need not be idolising the past, it’s a reminder of the reality of life in the present.
(Photo by Rosan Harmens on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 