Being Remembered

Day sixty-five

My prayer this morning is that I will have a fast Sunday focused on remembering the Lord, His sacrifice, and the importance of the Sacrament.  That I might be a better disciple and example to those around me and make their opportunity to worship the Lord a good experience.

Today's scripture study is Genesis 8:1: "And God remembered Noah..."

We are often taught to remember God, but what does it mean to be remembered by God? 

The word remembered in this verse does not imply that the Lord had somehow forgotten about Noah and his family.  We know that God is omniscient or having all knowledge (Matt 6:8; 2 Ne 2:24).  And He has assured us "lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:19-20).  Forgetting about His children is not an option, besides it would be difficult to forget someone that you are always with, just think about the people you spend most of your time with, would you forget them?

Now, the fact that the Lord remembers you does not mean that there won't be times in your life when you feel forgotten.  Even the most devoted Christian can sometimes feel like God has forgotten them.  These are the times when we are most vulnerable and start to have feelings of doubt, worry and fear.  Satan jumps at these opportunities and we start asking ourselves questions like:  If God is really there, why isn't he helping me? or Why don't good things ever happen to me? and What if I never get out of this situation?  

There is no record of Noah feeling this way, but I'm not sure that I could be in an ark for all that time without asking myself those questions.  Noah had the peace that comes from faith strong enough to know that he would be remembered.  This is the kind of faith I would like to have.  It gives me hope when I remember that Noah's faith had time to grow, he was on the earth much longer than the 40+ years I have been here and he had been a teacher/preacher for at least 120 years. He had many years of experiences to draw upon to build up his faith, I still have a long way to go to catch up to Noah.

I thought it would be helpful to look into what does God remembering you look like?

I have not been rescued from a flood that covered the whole earth, but I have had times in my life when God has rescued me.  These are some ways I have recognized God rescuing and remembering me:

People   
The Lord did not send Noah on the ark by himself, he sent him with his family.  He had support through the trials and the wait.  The Lord does the same thing for us.  If you take the time to think about the hard times in your life, you will most likely think of a special person(s) that the Lord put in your life to help you get through them. Family and friends are precious gifts in our lives that are put here to support us, to carry us through it, when the Lord is unable to be there himself.

Even strangers can help you with just a smile on those days when it seems the world is against you. One of my favorite ways the Lord uses strangers to help me is through music.  The chances of me becoming friends with the musicians that I listen to are slim, but through this person that I have never met the Lord provides a message in their songs that lifts me up. That is God remembering you!

Scriptures
No one is surprised that scriptures is on my list.  I have been taught, chastised, enlightened, and uplifted through studying the scriptures.  Some of my greatest life lessons have come from taking the time to get to know the Lord through the scriptures.  He spent a lot of time and effort preparing the people of the scriptures, like Noah, so that others may learn from these experiences, the least we can do is take the time to read them and find out what they can teach us. 

Answers to Prayers
Noah listened for the Lord's voice, in fact, he did not leave the ark until God spoke to him and told him it was okay to leave the ark (Genesis 8:15-16).  Answers to our prayers is one of the best ways that God remembers us.  It is personal.  Often we are the only one to recognize that God is answering our prayer at the moment.  It is a spirit to spirit conversation, meant especially for us from God.  It is through prayer that our relationship with the Lord grows and we start to recognize that He truly does know us, like nobody else does. 

Being remembered is an everyday event and there are many other ways that the Lord remembers us, these are just a few that I think most people would relate too.  I pray that I will be better at remembering that I am being remembered by God and live my life with the peace that Noah showed on the ark.