It's good to Remember

It's good to remember.

Joshua 4: 1-9 tells the story of the memorial stones. In short - the people had crossed over the Jordan River - through what could have been a turbulent, dangerous, deadly place that could have destroyed them completely. But....God came through. He placed the priests and the ark of the covenant (which represents God himself) in the middle of the Jordan as He pushed back the waters, holding the destructive power that would have taken their life so that they could walk through that situation on dry ground. The priests didn't stand on the side but in the middle - the deepest part of the river. The hardest part of the trial.

When they got across God told them to pick up a stone from the middle of the river and take it across to the other side. He said the use that stone as a memorial so they would remember what He did for them. The stones were to be taken from the middle of the river, the middle of the trial, when it could have been at its worst.

That's what He wants us to remember.

Think back to the middle of your battle. Take time to remember when God was with you at your lowest point. Don't forget when what could have been .... didn't happen. The sickness that didn't take your life, the loss of a job that didn't bring destruction, the family conflict that didn't destroy and the addiction that didn't bring ruin. The evil that could have destroyed was held back upstream.

We gain strength from remembering, we gain a renewed increase in faith from remembering and it reminds us just how faithful, how powerful and how loving our God is.

My prayer today: Father God, we praise you for being that unseen power that watches over us upstream, that watchful Father who never watches us from the sideline but always stands with us in the middle of our battle holding back destruction. Today we stop and take time to thank you that what could have been never made it to us. You are a good good Father. Amen