Remembering the Future

Remembering calls up our internal record of something now existing only in the past. A memory echoes reality, reverberating forward within our minds.

Remembrance stands as an essential aspect of faith– our life with God. Not impressed with man's upper-story, theological speculations about His reality, the Lord of heaven and earth revealed Himself conclusively in history. His manifest works and His specific revelation persuaded and convinced those He called to Himself. They handed these events and understandings down to their progeny, through oral transmission and the pen. They knew their own memories of these significant matters existed as mere transitory vapors, so they soberly and intentionally entrusted them to their sons and daughters.

The Lord, Who sits as sovereign above and beyond the vast sweep of all time, looks at His creatures who struggle within it, and implores them to look back to the past, to the certainty of what He has already done and to take to comfort in that.  He frequently reminds them to remember His revelation of His goodness and faithfulness and mercies, so they might not fear for their lives.

Some, who knew the power of remembering these solid truths, set up stones of remembrance– ebenezers– that would remain standing despite the ravages of the elements and their own inattention and ultimate demise, so they, and their children, and their children's children, might not forget.

"So Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the sons of Israel, one man from each tribe; and Joshua said to them, "Cross again to the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel. Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, 'What do these stones mean to you?' then you shall say to them, 'Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.' So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever." (Joshua 4.4-7, NASB)

So the twelve pulled these stones, submerged in the depths of the Jordan River mere hours previous, from the still muddy river bottom and carried them to the western banks. They heaped them together as a mnemonic– a memory aid. Even as old men, when these "sons of Israel" gazed upon this memorial of stones, they could not forget the immediacy of walking across the miraculously divided and stopped up river. They remembered the substantial weight of the rounded stones upon their shoulders, the sound of the brown mud of the river bed sucking the sandals from their feet as they walked, and the crash and tumble of the water as it finally refilled the channel.

The past has, indeed, happened, and it stands certain and immutable– always remaining securely locked in the vault of time. But it often appears as nothingness and as a vanishing shadow in the noonday light of the present. Its eternal solidity is firm, and yet, who can see it today? We hold the dusty records, but cannot return to even the previous minute, or second. No magic conveyance exists by which we can re-enter the day before today.

The changeless past stands as a stone to remind us of the concrete acts of God. But the present moment in which we live, and everyone who ever lived, remains the vital and real field in which the Timeless One reveals Himself to us personally. Though the past remains certain and not subject to change, the present and uncertain time still brims with God's manifestations of Himself, even now making memories for the children of this time and their descendants. We can not only remember the goodness and astonishing nature of God as He acted in the past, but we can also know His goodness to us in this present moment. His current and immediate presence with us now remains as sure for us as it stood for our fathers in the past.

And yet, here lies a more remarkable thing. On top of remembering God's wonderful acts in the past, and remembering His most relevant and comforting Presence in our present, we can, in fact, "remember" the future. Because His sovereignty extends well beyond and outside of this river we call time ("...Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come..."), He well knows the beginning from the end and knows our destination.

Not only that, He knows how He will enter into our future and provide most abundantly for those He calls to Himself. He knows we can rest assuredly safe in His future hands and care. He knows He will not let us slip into irreparable or unrecoverable danger.  He does not hold these matters secret. He has shown us what our future holds in Him. We can know these things– this future– as a fact, as something "as good as done," and as certain and unchangeable as the past.

Remembering the future undergirds a powerful, affirming, and encouraging hope.

"...encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today'...for we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end"   (Hebrews 3:13-14 NASB)

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>>> Except for quotations, all text and images are Copyright, Bill Brockmeier, 2015.  All rights reserved.

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Other related memories:

"Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and named it Ebenezer, saying, 'Thus far the LORD has helped us.' "  (1 Samuel 7.12, NASB)

"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout... and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."  (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, NASB)

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.'
And He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' And He said, 'Write, for these words are faithful and true.' Then He said to me, 'It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. "He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.'"  (Revelation 21:3-7, NASB)