Do You Remember When? By Christian Clinard

Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you pause and just reflect on the times that the Lord came through on your behalf? Perhaps you had a time where the bills were due and you just knew that the money wasn’t going to add up. It could have been that you were sick in your body, and the doctor didn’t have an answer for you. Possibly it was back in the early days of your ministry, when the pressure was on you and you felt like you were going to cave in if the Lord didn’t show up in a mighty way. Whatever the situation of life was, do you remember when it felt like everything was going wrong and there was nothing you could do to change it?

Do you remember what you did? I bet that I can answer for you: it was a late night, or an early morning, where you found yourself on your knees at the bedside, or in the closet, or on the porch, and you cried out in prayer unto the Lord because He was the only hope that you had in your hour of need. And then the best part of the whole situation happens: He takes care of you. Suddenly the money is there, or you wake up one morning and the pain is gone, or revival broke out in your church and people began to be saved and filled with the Holy Ghost. Do you ever pause and think about those moments anymore? I’m asking because I want you to see the importance of one of the most powerful tools of winning people to the Christian faith: remembrance.

            Part of being human is that it becomes easier for us to forget about a major event in our lives the more time that elapses from that event. It is much, much easier for us to remember something that happened to us five minutes ago than something that happened to us five years ago. However, some of the major moments of our lives can seem to be timeless. Many of those times where the Lord has really moved in our lives are times that we can remember like they happened yesterday. Do you know why that is? It is because those moments are marked by God for us as moments that we can look on and know without a shadow of a doubt that He was with us. It is much like what happened to Jacob, one of the patriarchs that would father the twelve tribes of Israel.

            In the book of Genesis, in the twenty-eighth chapter, Jacob is travelling and comes to rest for the night.  He takes a rock that is lying on the ground, and for some reason decides that it will make a wonderful pillow. As he begins to slip into sleep, he starts to dream of a large flight of stairs where he sees the angels of God moving up and down, ascending into heaven and descending to the earth below. And as he lifts his gaze even higher, Jacob sees the Lord above the staircase. If this seems like the ultimate spiritual experience, you won’t believe that it gets even better. The Lord promises Jacob that his offspring will inherit the land that he is sleeping on, and that the Lord would never abandon Jacob until he saw that promise come to pass. Talk about a good night’s sleep! Jacob awakens and exclaims that he has found the very house of God, and the gate to the heavens. It is from this moment that Jacob does something very interesting. In the eighteenth verse, he takes the rock he laid his head on and set is up as a “pillar”, pouring oil atop it and naming the place Bethel. The significance of what Jacob has just done is paramount! He has set up the pillar as a remembrance to himself. He has given himself a marker to return to when the Lord has fulfilled the promise that He gave to Jacob. And by placing this pillar of remembrance, Jacob has allowed himself to share the story of the Lord’s faithfulness to him to future generations.

            The beauty of remembrance is not simply for us to be able to remember all the times that the Lord has been good to us. Is that a part of it? It absolutely is, because it builds our faith to remember the times that the Lord was faithful to us. The true beauty of remembering the goodness of the Lord is that the testimony also becomes a weapon to rescue people from a life without hope. There is a principle presented in Scripture that is powerfully profound. John writes in the Revelation that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev 19:12). This truth means that a testimony of Jesus working in your life becomes a prophecy to someone going through a similar situation. For example, that time when the bills where due and the Lord provided is a testimony of our lives that becomes a prophecy for someone that has their bills coming up. When the Lord healed our bodies according to His Word? It is a prophecy for those whom are sick in their body currently. So when you go back and reflect on the faithfulness of the Lord over your lives, understand that it is not simply to build your faith that the Lord was with you but can become a tool to give hope to those around you that are going through that same situation.

            I am passionate about you practicing a lifestyle of remembering the Lord moving in your life because I believe that my generation needs to hear those stories of the Lord’s faithfulness. I, as a young twenty year old, can look at my generation and I currently see a generation like the one that came after the death of Joshua’s generation. We are like those that “arose after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel.” (Jud 2:10). My generation needs the stories of the Lord’s faithfulness in the generations that have come before us. We need the stories that show that God is alive and actively moving on behalf of His people, and we need the stories to know that the Father really cares about us. One of the greatest attacks on this generation is the lie to make them think that God truly does not care for them, that He is just some omnipotent Creator with no love for His creation. I am asking you, the body of Christ, to remember the faithfulness He has shown you, and to share it with our generation so that we may know the love the Father has for His children. Your testimony does matter, and you have the weapon that can help to rescue a generation being led away to destruction. (Pro 24:11).

~Christian Clinard