Deuteronomy 8:2 And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
It’s the end of another year, and we are here. Despite all that happened, you are here. Isn’t that a miracle? For me, this year has been such an eventful year and as I think, I am truly grateful. The average person would think I’m grateful because things were great and perfect. But no, I’m grateful for the chaos, the challenges, the tests, and the very bad things that happened. I had some really down moments this year and in fact, I cried many times. Now when I look back, I actually cry that I could stand all these difficulties with my faith still intact. This year showed me that what you sow inside you is what will come out when storms show up and I’m glad that God prepared me in advance for those moments.
The word ‘remember’ as I meditated, gives me two words; ‘re’ and ‘member’. ‘Re’ means again ‘member’ is a part of you. Joining these two words gives the meaning: “bringing back or thinking again over what has happened already.” And this action must be done by a part of you. Until you engage your members, you won’t be able to remember. This tells me remembrance is something you decide to do and are intentional about.
Until you are thoughtful, you will never be thankful.
The opening scripture embodies this idea of the Israelites making a decision not to forget what happened in the past in the wilderness, where it looked like there was no hope. Then in this same scripture, we see that God took them on that journey to serve two purposes; 1. To humble and test them. 2. To know what was in their heart
Sometimes when things look like they are going well, we tend to think it’s because we are intelligent or hardworking until we encounter a challenge and then we are back to God looking so meek. For many of us, some things happened to us over this year that proved that we weren’t all that we assumed we were. God had to bring us back to the place of depending on Him solely for everything. Then God needed to know what was in our hearts all this while. Your heart here is not the physical organ, it’s your spirit man. I mentioned earlier how what you sow into yourself will show when challenges come. The food for the human spirit is God’s Word, so if you weren’t imbibing the Word until now, you realize at the sight of the least problem, your response and reaction were from fear and doubt. You didn’t have a conviction or scripture to stand on, so you were shaky.
Nevertheless, you are here at the end of this year still standing and that is the greatest miracle. You may not have attained that thing you wanted but that your faith is still intact is priceless. Because that is really what the devil was targeting, not your marriage, children, job, car, or house. He just tried to poke those things to get at your faith.
Be deliberate about reminiscing on God’s faithfulness. You can actually determine your emotions at the end of this year by engaging your members – your mind – with all that God saved you from. Don’t be sad because you couldn’t do a particular thing. It will still not change the fact that you couldn’t achieve it. Your worry doesn’t solve the issue so why increase your stress level and blood pressure for nothing? See God even in the chaos. Be excited that you have been given another chance to make things right.
Have a blissful New Year!!!
The Word In Clarity 