The Practice of Remembering

If I’m honest, I can get to a place in my life where God’s grace is routine. The story of the Cross becomes familiar. The Easter story is just that…a story.

I want to live with a moment by moment awareness of and gratitude for grace. Over the past five years, I have tried to develop a habit that has helped me live in grace and not just have it be a term I use because I am a Christian…I call it the practice of remembering.

As we speak, write and meet with people, I have been accused of “living in the past.” People have thought we talk about the past too much…we share too much of our past…we should let the past be the past and just move on. I get it. I understand what they mean, because I know how hard it can be to talk about the past.

I want to remember the past but not live there. Over and over again, the Bible records commands that God gave His people to remember. Remember His faithfulness. Remember His rescue. Remember when they were in desperate need of His grace…and He gave it.

God knew we would forget. God knew we would take His faithfulness for granted. God knew He would become a story we talked about rather than a Savior we worshiped.

Here are a few questions I ask myself to help me remember:

• Can I remember the last time I was overwhelmed by grace?
• Do I remember the day I met Jesus?
• Do I remember how desperate I was for grace and God gave it?
• Do I remember the moment I needed a second chance, and God extended more than that?

When is the last time you allowed your heart to go there? That day that you realized that grace was for you…God wanted you to be his son coming home from a distant country…God wanted you to find your identity as His daughter…not in your performance or your attempt at perfection…but as His beloved. When is the last time you remembered all that He saved you from and the purpose He saved you to?

Maybe the difference in grace being something you talk about and something you live in is this practice of remembering. It has transformed my relationship with God.

Do you struggle with taking grace for granted?