Remember Me?

I was recently reminded of the difference between knowing and remembering. How many of us have faced countless exams, cramming information into our brains, only to forget the information on the test and remember only after we turned in our blue book?  “I knew that answer! Why couldn’t I remember it???” I think it is safe to say that in life (personal and academic) knowing something doesn’t do us much good if we can’t remember that we know it. How many times have I had to relearn a lesson, not because I hadn’t already learned it, but because I had simply forgotten?  And how many times in our lives do we let problems, circumstances, situations, or even relationships make us forget the core fundamental truths that we believe about ourselves, about life, and about God?

• You know you are loved beyond your ability to comprehend. But one relationship ended makes you feel like you will never be loved again.
  
• You know you are intelligent, but one poor review, critique, or comment makes you feel like you have nothing to offer.
  
• You know that God has created you fearfully and wonderfully, but after daily doses of models, media, and perfection, you start to believe that you are not enough.
  
• You know that God’s grace is sufficient but yet you walk around with an ever present fear of failure and the assumption that you still need to be perfect.
  
• You know you are capable and and have many gifts to offer the world and yet after comparing yourself to others, you start to feel incompetent and fear that people will figure out that you don’t in fact have a clue as to what you are doing.
  
• You know you are worth all of someone’s time, love, affection. You are worth passionate love and commitment. But fear of being alone makes you settle for comfort and stability. Fear of not wanting to start over makes you settle for unequal relationships, settle for giving more love than you receive, even when you know you deserve better.
  
• You know that you are worth loving- imperfections, flaws, and all- but you still choose on a daily basis to only show your best side to the world, even your loved ones. You choose to hide your fears and weaknesses and are scared to risk finding out that it is not just the best side of you but actually all of you that is lovable and redeemable. 

Life is a process of discovering ourselves; coming to know and understand who we are, and who God is; coming to understand and know deep within ourselves God’s abundant love and grace for us and the world. And yet even after we know who we are, even after we have felt God’s grace and love poured out abundantly on us, we still find ourselves in moments where we forget. Sometimes, on a daily basis. So how do we remember? By practicing. I don’t remember anything about high school chemistry (even though I got an A in the class, which means at one point I had to have known it). Why? because I haven’t looked at a chemistry book in over 10 years. But my best friend Bruce who was a chemistry teacher for almost 10 years knows (and remembers) an amazing amount of chemistry. Why? Because he uses it on a daily basis. 

This got me thinking, how do we practice remembering who we are and who God is? Biblically, this was a strategy that God used with the Israelites all the time. In the desert, complaining and mumbling, God always reminded them of who God was and all that God had brought them through. “Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD God redeemed you from there.” (Deut. 24:22) Throughout the Old Testament God has to continually remind the Israelites who they are and whose they are. Why? Because it is so easy to forget. We live in a world that is daring us to forget, that would love us to forget that we are called to be different, that we are called to live in grace and love and seek justice and peace, that we are called to follow Jesus and his radical teachings. Every day we walk in this world and are tempted to forget and so every day we must actively practice remembering.... 

• We remember how loved we are by loving abundantly, seeking reconciliation, and receiving grace (which inevitably means that we have to admit that we need grace which is a lot harder than it seems).
  
• We remember God’s greatest commandment by giving up our power and giving up ourselves for others.
  
• We practice finding the courage to verbalize our fears and insecurities to those we trust, so that they can remind us of who we are. So they can tell us when we are being crazy.
  
• We practice living into the teachings of Jesus by building relationships with the types of outsiders that Jesus built relationships with.
  
• We practice standing naked in front of a mirror to remind ourselves of the amazing things our body has done for us over the years.
  
• We even practice failing, so that we remember that failure isn’t the end of the world.

Some people would say that life is all about discovering who you are, knowing yourself, being true to yourself. But I think that discovering who you are is often times a simple task. The majority of us know who we are. It is the remembering against all odds that is the much more difficult part. And the beautiful thing about remembering is that you can’t usually do it alone. You need others. You need friends, confidants, lovers, partners, sisters, mothers, brothers, communities, who see you, know you, and can remind you of who you are and who God is. May we all find the courage to see ourselves, to know and be known, and most importantly to remember...  

Just one of the ways I remember...