God remembers

High Bridge, Farmville, Virginia

For various reasons, my memory is not good. I blame it on all the pregnancies; apparently they affect a woman’s ability to remember. I’ve heard it called “pregnancy brain.” Google calls it “momnesia.” I wish I’d known that word while it was happening, but I’m 33 years late to that etymological party.

My poor memory is the reason I write everything down. The most-used app on my phone is Notes, and I currently have 258 Notes in 9 categories. I still take notes in church—the hand-written kind—and I will often write LU: (some word). That means I want to go home and look up that word, either in the Bible dictionary or the concordance so I can see how many times it’s used and where and what the contexts are. If I don’t write it down immediately, I will 100% forget.

Recently I wrote LU: remember. I was specifically interested in seeing what the Bible says about what and when God remembered. Here’s what I found.

God remembered specific people.

Gen 8:1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged.

When Noah and his wife and sons and their wives had been in the ark for many months, floating around in the middle of a literally endless sea of water that covered the entire earth, God knew they were there and had a plan for getting them back on dry land. He remembered Noah.

Gen 19:29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

Before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham had a long conversation with him, asking him to spare the cities if there were just ten righteous people in them. (You can read it in Genesis 18:16–33.) Turns out there were not even ten righteous people in the two cities, so God told Abraham to grab his nephew Lot and his family and get out of there. He was going to burn it all to the ground. They did, and he did, but for Abraham’s sake and because of the conversation they’d had, God let him rescue his family first. God remembered Abraham.

Gen 30:22 And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.

Rachel wasn’t the greatest person—she had beauty but she didn’t have character. Remember, Jacob had worked seven years for Rachel, but her father gave Jacob Leah instead, because the elder had to be married first. Technicalities. So then Jacob worked another seven years for Rachel because she was the one he really wanted. You could say there was a little animosity between the sisters, plus there were two handmaids involved, Bilhah and Zilpah. And the baby-making began. All told, Jacob had ten sons and a daughter with Leah and the two handmaids, but during that time Rachel wasn’t able to conceive.

Then finally “God remembered Rachel.” Why did he wait so long? We can only speculate because the Bible doesn’t say, and honestly, speculation is pretty unhelpful because we only see with our human minds and God’s ways are not like our ways.

What we do know is that “God hearkened to her,” meaning she had been asking. If I know anything about infertility, she had been begging, pleading, crying, desperate, aching to be a mother. When God finally remembered her, she said, “God hath taken away my reproach”—my shame, my disgrace. But God did eventually remember Rachel.

1 Sam 1:19 And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her.

Hannah went through a similar circumstance as Rachel’s—she was barren. But in Hannah’s case, there was the mean sister-wife Peninnah to contend with. I wrote a whole essay about how beautifully Hannah handled this if you want to see how Hannah had an emotional breakdown. But the point is that Hannah faced a terrible hardship and God remembered her.

In each of these cases—Noah on the ark, Abraham in Sodom and Gomorrah, Rachel and Hannah in their barrenness—God’s person was in a hard season and God remembered them. Sometimes their hard season went on for a very long time, and only God knows why he lets that happen. But he knew every situation and he remembered them.

He remembers you too.

God remembered his covenant.

Ex 2:24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

Israel had been in bondage, slaves in Egypt for 400ish years. The work was back-breaking, their entire existence worse than bleak, and they were crying out to God to deliver them. God remembered the covenant he’d made with Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob) and set a plan in place to get them out of Dodge. Commence ten plagues, etc.

Ps 105:8 He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.

In the middle of praising the Lord for all his goodnesses, the Psalmist reminds us that God never forgot his covenant with his people. He “remembered his covenant for ever.” And listen, for ever doesn’t just mean from this moment forward. In God’s timeline, for ever means all the time previous and all the time to come. Literally ALL of the time. He put his plan in motion long before his people began crying out to him because he remembered his covenant.

Ps 105:42 For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant.

Psalm 105 begins by praising God’s wonderful works, then reiterates his covenant with Israel, and then details what he did to bring it all to pass: Joseph, Moses, the plagues, his great provision in the wilderness after Israel escaped Egypt. All of that happened because “he remembered his holy promise.” Not only that, but even after centuries, God remembered Abraham his servant. He was committed to keeping his covenant.

Ps 106:45 And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.

It’s no secret that despite all of God’s faithfulness, Israel made a train wreck of themselves. They worshipped idols, they provoked God with their ungratefulness, they disobeyed him repeatedly. The Bible says “they were defiled with their own works” (v 39). In verses 40–43, God sent chastisement in an effort to straighten them out, and then even in their chastisement, “he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry” (v 44). Never think the Lord is not moved with compassion by your distress, even when it is of your own making.

In verse 45, God’s mercy took over and “he remembered for them his covenant.” They didn’t remember it. It was probably the furthest thing from their minds at that time. So God remembered it for them.

God remembered who we are.

Ps 78:39 For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.

Israel had been unthankful for God’s provision and incurred his wrath (v 17–31). Only after chastening did they remember that he was their rock and redeemer (v 32–35). But we can see in verses 36–37 that they didn’t really repent. Then in verse 38, because of his great compassion he forgave them anyway. Incredible.

God knows us. He knows we are not him and not like him, not even close. Light-years away, in fact. He remembers that we are “but flesh.” Psalm 103 says, “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” Never think you’re going to fool God into thinking you’re some great being. He knows. He remembers what you are and where you came from.

Ps 136:23 Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Psalm 136 gives us a rundown of all the good things God has done for us precisely because he knows who we are. We need him because his mercy endures forever, and because his mercy endures forever, he remembers us in our low estate.

God remembered specific sins.

Rev. 18:5 For her [Babylon’s] sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

God will not forget all sins in the end. He remembers the sins of Babylon. But . . .

Heb 8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

Heb 10:17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

The book of Hebrews was written to Hebrew Christians—those who had trusted in the finished work of Jesus, those whose sins had been paid for by the shed blood of Christ on the cross. And look what God says about their sins: “I will remember no more.” It’s not that God forgets; it’s that he chooses not to remember. Instead, he remembers his mercy and that he sent his Son to pay the price for sinful man so we could be with him in heaven one day. That’s worth remembering!

God remembered who he is.

Ps 98:3 He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Even when we get so bogged down in the details of our difficult lives and we forget that God is there full of mercy and compassion and truth and hope and faithfulness, he remembers.

Momnesia keeps me from remembering a lot. But God remembers.