Psalm 119:16 – Ways to Forget
In your statutes I delight.
I will not forget your word.
If this were not poetry, I might be tempted to talk about the rather optimistic promise of not forgetting God’s word. But then I remember how many times I have said, “I’m not going to forget that” in reference to some planned task or another. Most of the time I forget, but if I never make a conscious effort to remember, forgetting becomes 100%.
So I got to thinking about different ways to forget God’s word.
Having memorized large portions of it (not voluntarily) when I was younger, I could say that forgetting God’s word was like forgetting the words I had memorized. That would be literally forgetting, and I have certainly done plenty of that.
But let’s consider some other ways of forgetting:
- We can forget the creator when we look at creation.
- We can forget to consult God’s word when it is applicable to our decision making
- We can forget that God’s word comes in many ways, and that God’s truth is always applicable, however delivered!
- We can forget God’s promises
- We can forget what God has done in our lives in the past
- We can forget the history of God’s actions in our families.
How do you forget? Is it time to revive a memory?
