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he last year of high school is one of the most memorable and
most challenging for students. All
during the year, students constantly speak of their ardent desire for the
school year to end. They can't wait to
receive their diplomas, leave home and family, attend university or get a job,
and finally be out on their own. These
sentiments usually last until April and then, as the final six weeks of school
approach, they suddenly realize that this portion of life is over. Frantically, they seek some way of applying the brakes, of
slowing life down, and avoiding the inevitable.
The excitement of finishing school and breaking all ties with home is
replaced by the anxiety of what the future holds and the fear that they will be
forgotten.
One of my former high school students embodied these very
emotions with frightening precision. At
the start of his last year he was overjoyed to be finishing school and wanted
nothing more than to be done with his studies and his hometown. Yet, on graduation day, he stood before me
with tears in his eyes and streaming down his cheeks asking me over and over
not to forget him. He had this terrible
fear that no one would remember him, that his life to that point would have had
no significance for anyone.
This student, however, is not alone. We all suffer from this same fear. We are afraid that after we have served our
purpose, we will be forgotten, thrown out, discarded, much like we discard
containers after we have emptied them of their content. Such a view of life, though extremely common,
fails to take into account God's thoughts toward us.
Genesis 8:1a at first
seems to be just an introduction to a new chapter. But if you read it carefully, you will
discover just how much God cares for you.
The opening line of chapter 8 begins with these words, "But God remembered
Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him on the
ark..." But God remembered? No, God never forgot Noah. He knew
where he was and he knew what Noah was doing.
I believe the verse might be better understood if read this way,
"But God was thinking about Noah...."
That's right, thinking about him.
Although Noah was locked in the ark without knowing what the
situation was on the outside, although he tended the animals day after day and
week after week, and although he may have believed God had forgotten him, the
scriptures tell us that God remembered him. God's promise to Noah was that he would be
saved and God kept that promise. All the
time Noah spent in the ark seemingly forgotten, he was in the process of being
saved and perfected for the purpose God had for him. God thought about Noah. He saw him in the ark. He saw him as he performed his daily duties. He heard him when he prayed, and he sheltered
him during the storm.
God does the same things for us on a daily basis. God thinks
about us all the time. He makes plans
for us (Jeremiah 29:11), he knows how many hairs are on our heads (Matthew
10:30), his thoughts toward us cannot be counted (Psalm 139:17-18), he hears
our prayers (Psalm 55:17), and he shelters us (Psalm 61:3). When we consider all that he does on our
behalf we understand better what Genesis 8:1a means. Although it may appear that God has abandoned
us and that he has forgotten us in our moment of need, nothing could be farther
from the truth. Isaiah 43:3 assures us
that whenever we pass through deep waters or walk through fires God is with us. It is impossible for him to be with us and
forget about us. It simply will not
happen.
Today as you go about your routine and it seems to you that
God is nowhere in sight and that he is very far away, let these words from Isaiah 49:14 -ff
comfort and reassure you: "But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the
Lord has forgotten me.' 'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no
compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my
hands; your walls are ever before me." He who remembers
Israel and who keeps all his promises is faithful to remember you today!!
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