Psalm 77: The Power of Remembering
I have a mom confession to make: I do not have memory books, scrapbooks, or even printed photo albums of my kids from when they were babies. With my first, I attempted making a scrapbook, but I think I only completed one page. Yes, scrapbooks were still in their prime back in 2008. (On a side note: how is my first baby turning 14 in just a couple weeks?!)
Of course, thanks to Instagram, I do have some of their baby years and early childhood years documented fairly well. But I’ll be honest…I have lost some of the first pictures of my first two kids, because our phones weren’t equipped with the cloud and google photos like they are now. Well, actually, our phones didn’t have cameras quite like we are spoiled with now! Saving photos and memories was much more of a chore than it is today in 2022.
I cherish what I do have, though. I cherish the photos in my phone and on Instagram of my kids when they were babies. I scroll through them from time to time, and my heart nearly bursts with each one. When my teenagers (or almost teenagers) give me grief, when they talk back and roll their eyes, when I’m saddened by their insistence to continue growing up, I spend a few minutes remembering them as babies. I flip through pictures and videos of them with baby food all over their faces or running around in nothing but a diaper or cheesing big for the camera. I especially obsess over the pictures of them sleeping in their cribs, all squishy and content as could be.
There is something powerful in remembering.
In Psalm 77, we see the power of remembering in Asaph’s life. (Asaph is credited with writing this Psalm.) Much like in many of the other Psalms, Asaph has some questions of God. He is experiencing trouble; he finds himself in anguish, his soul refusing to be comforted. He wonders if God’s unfailing love has actually failed. He is concerned that God’s promises have come to an end, and he is tempted to think that God has forgotten His mercy and grace.
Sometimes I find myself wondering whether my children will ever show affection to me again. I wonder if their newly formed skills of eye rolling and talking back have replaced their laughter and cheesy smiles for good. But then, what do I do? I go back to my pictures and memories. I fill my heart with what I know of them to be true. I remember.
That is not dissimilar to the conclusion Asaph comes to. “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your wonders of old,” he says (v.11). And he continues with what he will remember. He actually gets specific. He goes back to one particular “wonder of old”—God’s deliverance of His people from Egypt through the Red Sea. In fact, this one miraculous act of God’s sovereignty, grace, and providence is the most remembered in all of the Bible. We can barely turn a page in the Old Testament without God’s people being reminded, in one way or another, of this mighty act of God.
This is what Asaph chooses to remember, to set his focus and attention on. It didn’t negate anything he was experiencing or feeling in the present, but it bolstered his faith in his God, the One “who works wonders” (v.14). Here’s the kicker: Asaph was not alive at the time of the crossing of the Red Sea. He doesn’t have any physical memories of this miraculous event. It was so memorialized by God’s people over the ages that it was embedded in who he was as an Israelite. (Not that they were perfect at remembering…because they definitely were not! Just read anywhere in the Old Testament to see God practically begging them to keep remembering what He had done for them.)
There is something powerful in remembering.
Do you remember what God has done for you?
Do you spend time intentionally remembering God’s faithfulness?
Has God provided an answer or a need in the past?
Has God healed you, whether through medical or miraculous avenues?
Has God given you peace when you thought peace was impossible?
Has God protected you in a difficult situation?
Has God brought you into a church family or the lives of fellow believers to care for you?
Has God ever left you or forsaken you?
Have you witnessed answers to prayers?
Have you experienced the remarkable, unexplainable love of God in your life?
Has God forgiven and saved you, taken you from the mire of your past and planted you firmly in the soil of His grace, mercy, and love?
It’s easy to focus on the problems and pain of our present. Goodness, it is so easy! But the only way to get through them, to make it to the other side still firmly planted in Him is to remember WHO HE IS and WHAT HE HAS DONE! Remember His faithfulness. Remember His mercy. Remember His grace. Remember His love.
When we are so convinced of His “wonders of old,” we have no reason not to expect those wonders to resurface. We have no reason not to trust Him to be who He always has been. He is faithful—that is WHO HE IS.
How is your memory?
Sometimes we do forget. Sometimes what was so life-changing a couple years ago becomes a faint, nearly gone memory. We’ll have moments of thinking, “Oh, yeah…I forgot about that. I forgot God did that for me.” Or maybe we’ll find ourselves so far removed from it that we question whether it was God at all. (I’ve been there!)
There’s no shame in needing a little help with our memory from time to time. I mean…my memory is nothing like it used to be before having kids!
Let's get practical:
I’ll end this today with one very practical encouragement aside from the obvious encouragement to remember. I would like to encourage you to begin tracking God’s faithfulness in your life. Record when an answer to prayer occurs. Write down how God showed up in your life in certain situations. Be intentional about it. It may seem strange at first, or you might even find it difficult to think of things to record. But, I promise you it gets easier the more you do it. It just takes a little practice.
God is good all the time. He is always working and moving. He is always, always faithful. We just have to train ourselves to see it.
Your assignment (should you choose to accept it): begin recording God’s faithfulness in your life. The big things and the little things. Find a notebook, something physical, and designate it as your Memory Book of God’s Faithfulness.
I used to be very consistent with this. At the end of each month, I would record all of the ways God showed up that month. I’m admitting to you now that I need to get back into the practice of doing that.
I don’t think I need to say this, but I will anyways. You may be wondering why we should actually write it down. Why keep a record at all? Well, there will be times in your future when you find yourself questioning God’s faithfulness, when you are in trouble and your soul refuses to be comforted. In those times, you will be able to pull out your record of God’s faithfulness in your life, written in your own handwriting and your own words. Can you imagine how incredibly encouraging and helpful that will be? Memory books aren’t for now. They are for later when your memory begins to fail, when you begin questioning what is true.
There is something powerful in remembering.
dig deeper:
Psalm 143
Psalm 145
Exodus 14
Psalm 114
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