Remember this

Memories are fickle companions, sometimes acting like a warm blanket on a chilly morn, reminders of those good times when life seemed altogether lasting and satiating. Then, there are the ones best left to forgetting, rather pesky and persistent in some corner of mind, there to tell us who we truly are and what we have done, occasionally surfacing through the mire of repression or rising from the bin of the ones wished left behind.

Age changes the color and amplitude and suddenness of memory. A favored one is always near—the bowl of chocolate ice cream you enjoyed after supper, the cup of coffee and scone you shared catching up with a friend, the birthday party you attended, the vacation at the beach last week, perhaps finally ending your procrastination over a project needing attention at the house. There they are, present and fresh as a biscuit coming out of the oven.

Sometimes, many times in old age, memories are dormant until some sight or sound or situation triggers a rush to the fore, back into the present as though each waited for just this moment, entering from stage left on cue. Something like a face and a name occupy this category. Seems like someone always starts by saying, “Do you remember so and so?” Then, you respond and say either “I remember the name but can’t picture a face,” or “I can see a face but what was his name?” Memory is never the problem, just retrieval. Across time and synapse, memories echo in the turrets of our brain.

Seeking God is like searching a memory. Psalm 27: 8 says, “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ My heart said to You, ‘Your face, LORD, I will seek.’” Hear the echo in the verse. God commands us by voice to seek His face. We answer the same. Our answer is to search Him, to know Him, to seek His presence. He comes. He comes in the many faceted ways He chooses to be present with us, to turn toward us in new ways.

God speaks first, calls us to His presence. Ours is to respond, to seek, to long for, and in a real sense, to remember. To seek Him is to turn toward Him as we turn toward those ever-present memories residing within.

Though we forget, God does not. His face came in the face of Jesus, who revealed to us God’s glory and truth, there for the seeker. Plain is the truth all that is needed is the removal of pride, of will, of self, of wanting other than God.

Memories become life’s shadows, remnants of what was, of what desire wrought in us and through us, of our becoming. Shadows exist because there is a light behind them, and turning to the light, the shadow disappears and light grants its warmth.

Persistent as memory, God seeks us. Our desire for His presence, His person, the light of His countenance was His idea all along. Remember this.