I started this blog to sell some clothes, and I warned you I didn’t know where it would take me.  Every time I have started to post some pictures of my son in a dress, or to share a favorite recipe, I am tempted to forget about it and just tell you a story.  I like telling stories.  I think I get it from my dad.  I remember every night when he would come home from work, he wouldn’t just tell about his day- he would weave a thrilling tale of restaurant management intrigue or hilarious wait staff ineptitude.  There were tales of how he once dropped an ice cream sundae on a bald man’s shiny head, or a skillet of sizzling mushrooms in an old ladies lap.  Once, because his boss had told him to at least pretend like he always knew the answer to a customer’s question, he promptly responded  “oyster’s eggs”, to  the question “what is a caper?”  Before dementia began to set in, he could make a great story out of the most mundane things, and when he shared stories of the things that were important to him, his passion was infectious.   He loved history of all kinds and could tell the tales of men and women dead and gone just as easily as if it had been his own story.  He wanted us to remember what they had done. He didn’t want us to forget where we came from.

I have been thinking a lot about my dad lately as his memory falters and he now finds it difficult to string a cohesive sentence together, let alone tell a tale of his childhood.  My older sister has asked us to compile a list of all the things dad taught us about life for his birthday in a few weeks.  My dad taught me that it is important to know your own story.

I grew up in a great church, and our pastor was, and is, an amazing preacher.  I still listen to his sermons as often as I can via podcast, and I heard one the other night that struck the same chord. It is important to know your own story.   The sermon came from an unlikely passage- Numbers 38.  You know, one of those passages of Scripture that you breeze  past to get to the more interesting stuff?  It is just a list Moses was told to write of 42 places that the Israelites camped at as they made their way through the wilderness to the Promised Land.  I would post the entire sermon here if I had the space, but in short, he asks the question, “why is this list in the Bible? Of what use is it to us?”

He makes the point that though the list of places means little to us, many of the places meant a great deal to the Israelites.  Here the Red Sea parted, there the water poured from a rock, and over there, they bowed down to a golden calf.  God wanted them to remember what they had learned in these places.  But there are also places mentioned where we have no idea what happened, and as far as we can tell, were not memorable to the Israelites either.  He continues-

The significance of this too is not so difficult to grasp.  Life is like that, is it not? A Christian life is always like this, a pilgrimage through the wilderness of this world. We can recall  times of the Lord’s drawing near, of leaps forward in  faith and obedience. We remember those crises in our lives:  when we were converted; when we met the man or woman who was to become our husband or wife; when we sinned in some shameful way; when we experienced the nearness and power of God in some  great measure; when we were overcome by joy.

But as soon as we look back upon the moments that are indelibly inscribed in our memory, we realize that the rest of our past is mostly a blur. We cannot summon it up so well. Our past is punctuated by noteworthy moments but  those appear in our memory only as events separated from one another by long periods of forgetfulness. Most of our life is not a mountain top; nor is it a deep valley.  It is neither euphoria nor despair, but simply the living of days during which nothing significant seems  to happen.

We remember occasions of grief and a sense of the Lord’s mercy that came to us in our time of  trouble. But, of course, we are consuming fifty-five gallon barrels of the Lord’s mercy and grace every day of our lives. We remember his answering our prayer to give us that good job, but, of course, he has provided for us what we  need for life and happiness every day of our lives.  The crossing of the sea, the water from the rock, the quail  for the complaining people, these simply  illustrate in memorable ways what is always happening and what is always true in the life of God’s people.

I’m not sure why these 42 place names made the  list and why others did not. But I think it is beyond doubt that the list was composed for the sake of Israel’s collective memory.  In the Bible memory is a spiritual  duty and forgetfulness is a principle sin of God’s people.  You are not going to behave the same way, or believe the same way, or love the same way, if you have an active recollection of those times of the Lord’s great work in your life. You must remember what the Lord has done for you.  It is how  faith is kept fresh and powerful in the heart.

It is remembering the journey that keeps the journey of your life a living thing in your mind. Otherwise it is apt to become nothing but a meaningless succession of days and nights. And believe me, parents especially, nothing is more fatal to our children than for their  parents to think of their lives in that utterly uninteresting way.

Every moment of your life is chocked full of real consequence, supercharged with eternal significance. It is the active recollection of where you have gone and what God has shown you and what he has  done for you and how he has loved you and provided for all you need, that turns your daily round into a  great story of a pilgrimage, a great adventure full of exploits, over which and through which is found the presence of the Living God.

You do what Moses did and write up your list and read it again and again until you know your own story and you find it rising up to meet you at every turn in the road as you wend your way through the wilderness of  this world to the Promised Land.

I would like to take up that challenge and maybe share a little of it with you.