Chemotherapy of the Soul
How can we guard ourselves from this spiritual forgetfulness? How can we root out the cancer that threatens our joy and faith? Very simply, the antidote is to remember. Remember God’s gracious deliverance and redemption. Establish it in your memory. Memorialize it. Paint it on the walls of your house. Journal it and reread it each morning.
God gives us this pattern in the Exodus. Israel has just been given their menu for the next 40 years: manna from heaven. Gather six days, a double portion on the last, and rest on the Sabbath. But then God commands Moses to take an omer of manna (about two quarts) and keep it in a jar as a reminder of God’s faithfulness (Exodus 16.32–33″ data-version=”esv” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>Exodus 16:32–33).
There are two miracles here. The obvious is that God fed a couple million people with manna from heaven for 40 years. No gluten allergies, no low-carb diet and no lack of vital nutrients. God sustains his people miraculously to teach them he can and will provide their daily bread—everything they need.
The second is that the manna in the jar did not spoil as it normally would (Exodus 16:20). God kept the manna from spoiling to remind Israel that he not only keeps manna from spoiling, but that he will keep his people alive, even in the wilderness. This jar of white flakes was to be an enduring reminder that God provides. He provides in the Exodus from Egypt, and he provides in the desert wasteland.
We Must Remember
God is saying the same thing to you. If you’re inclined to grumble, to be thankless or to complain about our circumstances, God graciously reminds us that we must remember his gracious redemption and provision.
Take a moment and look back on God’s fingerprints all over your life:
- Remember how God has protected you from making a shipwreck of your life.
- Remember how God graciously let you grow up in a godly family.
- Remember how God awakened you to the ugliness of your sin.
- Remember how you walked away from that terrible car crash.
- Remember how your wife, sister or mom survived breast cancer.
- Remember how you had mentors and key friends guide you in your faith.
- Remember how he sustained you during that season of unemployment.
- Remember how God miraculously healed you.
- Remember that impossible prayer request that God answered.
- Remember how you had no money and an envelope just showed up in the mail with exactly the amount you needed.
- Remember how the gospel came alive as it never had before.
- Remember God.
The antidote to spiritual amnesia is making every effort to recall and remember God’s gracious deliverance. The fact that you—a sinner who was an enemy of God—are now a beloved child is a miracle. Don’t let that wonder ever fade. Remember.
Let this act of remembering awaken in you joy in God and a deep sense of gratitude that God loves you, knows you and keeps you.
