Give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name;

Make His deeds known among the peoples.

Sing to Him, sing praises to Him;

Speak of all His wonders.

—1 Chronicles 16:8-9

Remembrance is a huge theme throughout the Bible. To this day, it’s built into the rhythms of the Jewish religion. The Sabbath is a reminder of the blessing of resting in and relying on God. The feasts are reminders of different times in the history of the Jewish people and what God did. 

And we as Christians have inherited some of that focus on remembrance through the Lord’s Supper, during which we are meant to remember Christ and His sacrifice on the cross.

You don’t have to get far into the Old Testament to get some pretty good examples of people pulling a Dory and forgetting what God had done for them right after He did it. Collectively, we humans generally stink at remembering the goodness and power of our God, so it’s not a surprise that we are repeatedly told in Scripture to remember what God has done. 

Today’s verses come when David makes the decision to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. It had spent 20 years in Kirjath-jearim, mostly during Saul’s reign. And we know how Saul’s reign went. He had the kingdom ripped away from him because he took spiritual matters into his own hands out of fear of the people. He forgot the story of Gideon and the fact that God doesn’t need large armies to win wars and was disobedient. 

After David became king, he decided that the Ark of the Covenant, the reminder of all the promises God had made to the people of Israel, needed to be brought to Jerusalem. 

But the delivery got delayed. On the first leg of the journey, the Ark was carried on a wagon pulled by oxen instead of being carried by the Levites like God had instructed Moses. One of the oxen stumbled and in an attempt to prevent the Ark from falling, a man broke God’s commandment and touched it. As a result, just like the penalty had always been, the man died. 

After this incident, David left the Ark with Obed-edom out of fear and returned to Jerusalem. For three months, the Ark stayed with Obed-edom. In that time, David built a place to put the Ark and he refreshed his memory about how God had decided it would be carried. Then he gathered all the Israelites again, making sure the Levites did the carrying this time, and they brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. 

We just celebrated the Fourth of July, a reminder of our country’s history of fighting for independence, but I can’t help but think we need a season of remembering what God has done for us. 

When David paused for three months to study up on God’s instructions for the Ark, he would’ve found himself face to face with the wonders God performed through Moses, the miracle of bringing millions of people out of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and all the miracles performed through the wilderness. But God has also been at work in and on behalf of our country. 

How else would a ragtag band of rebels end up defeating one of the greatest military forces of the time? It could only have been through the work of God that our Constitution came to recognize and champion personal rights on the basis of being divinely created because without a Divine Creator, humanism steps in and makes those inalienable rights subjective and unstable as long as the majority agrees a group doesn’t deserve them. And when the founding fathers didn’t succeed in living up to the inalienable rights for all, God raised up brave men and women to fight against that. 

Through the years, He has used us to lead mission efforts around the world, and although our nation’s biblical foundation has been under attack for years, we are again seeing Him move in our culture. 

So let’s remember. Let’s remember what God has done. Let’s remember His goodness and His faithfulness. Let’s remember how He has provided for our country in magnificent ways. Because remembering, just like when David’s remembering allowed the Ark to be brought home with confidence and rejoicing, is the door to peace and joy!