Memory is a funny thing, isn’t it? My first memory is being pushed around in a dolphin cart at Sea World by my beloved Grandpa. But, then again, I don’t know if I actually remember it, or if looking at a tattered picture created a memory to which I cling. Either way, I treasure it because (though the picture holds no hints) my grandfather was very sick with the cancer that would take his life earlier than any of us would have liked.

The Scriptures are replete with the command to remember; however, there are two ditches we can fall into when traveling the backwards path of time: remembering with rose-colored glasses or remembering through melancholic lenses.

Remember

The Hebrew word for remember is used fifteen times throughout the book of Deuteronomy. The aged Moses reminds God’s people to “remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 5:15). A few chapters later, he bids them to “not be afraid of them” but instead “to remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:18). My favorite of the string of remember verses occurs one chapter later, when Moses commands them to remember the whole commandment and the whole way:

The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you” (Deuteronomy 8:1–2).

Whole is the world that trips me up: obey the whole of the commandment to remember wholly. To remember rightly is to remember wholly (the good, the bad, the ugly, the shameful, the embarrassing, the delightful, the traumatic and the triumphant).

Remember Rightly

This past week, I did not plan to take a time-traveling drive in a DeLorean, but some triggers led me back to some parts of my story I don’t like to remember. In fact, I have become adept at side-stepping or sugar-coating or suppressing (depending on which works for the moment). The Spirit brought two phrases from early in Deuteronomy to heart and mind: “that great and terrible wilderness” (Deuteronomy 1:19) and the aforementioned”the whole way the Lord your God has led you” (Deuteronomy 8:2).

I don’t like remembering “that great and terrible wilderness,” and I would bet the Israelites did not like it either: the hunger, the thirst, the confusion, and the long-wandering; the reminders of their unbelief, murmuring, and disobedience; the just punishment for their acts. That’s a long parade to parse and ponder. Yet, Moses (or more precisely, the Lord through Moses) bids us remember rightly.

We all have our own great & terrible wildernesses, don’t we? But those parts of our stories that we try to hide or repaint with gold-colored hues are significant pieces of the whole way the Lord has led each of us. To truncate them or to try to spin the story differently is to siphon glory from the stories of glory and redemption the Lord is writing for his glory and our good.

Bleached stories don’t show off his many-colored, variegated grace (1 Peter 4:8 &10). Books with chapters torn out don’t honor the author or show off his skill and artistry. In all the trials of the great and terrible wilderness, even those they brought upon themselves, God was with his people. Moses reminded the Israelites, “These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing” (Deuteronomy 2: 7). Later, he exclaims, “For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7).

We can remember our great and terrible wildernesses because we know our “great and awesome God” (Deuteronomy 7:21). Not only can we remember them, we can even learn to rejoice in them as pointers to the power and presence of our God.

That Great & Terrible Wilderness

That great and terrible wilderness
His faithfulness has fully tamed.
Follow the crumbs of the manna,
Remember all Christ has claimed!

Retrace His ways in this wilderness,
Admitting your lack and His love.
Mark out your own meager faith
And His plenty-dropping from above.

That great and terrible wilderness?
His mercy has made it a garden!
Remember the whole way He led,
Lest your heart in forgetting harden.

I don’t know your great and terrible wildernesses, but I do know the great and awesome God. I pray that he would gently lead to remember rightly the whole way he has led you thus far. His gentle leading of his children will not stop until he has walked us all the way into glory (Isaiah 40:11; Psalm 73:23–24).