Promise:
We build trust and faith in God by remembering all that He has done.
Passage:
Each of us has traditions. Perhaps you have a family practice of serving a certain casserole to remind you of your great-grandmother at the holidays or perhaps you have a special jersey you wear at the first kickoff your favorite sports team each season. Perhaps you have a favorite New Year’s Eve toast or a special thing you do on every wedding anniversary. Routines and rituals are a very effective way to nudge the memory and create a rhythm that brings the mind back again and again to what is most important. So much so, that we do it for trivial things like games and to celebrate “national donut day.”
To remember was one of the last commands that Jesus gave his earthly followers at the last supper where he instituted the Christian communion. He asked his disciples to remember his body and blood shed for them (read the account in Luke 22). A practice grounded in the Israelite remembrance of Passover which was practiced for centuries before Jesus and his disciples observed it in the upper room that fateful night in Jerusalem.
God knew that our memory needs a nudge and this is the power of ritual.
The Passover is a great example of how ritual and remembrance go together. When the Isrealites were enslaved in Egypt, the final plague that convinced the Pharoah to release the people to Moses’ leadership was the first born of every family and herd of animals was struck dead. The have God spare them from the same fate, the Isrealities put blood on the door posts of their houses and prepared for a quick exit with bread that didn’t have time to rise. From the point of God’s initial instructions to Moses, he instituted the Festival of Unleavened Bread as a “lasting ordinance for the generations to come” (Exodus 12).
This is how Moses described it in Exodus 13:3 and following:
3 Then Moses said to the people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast. 4 Today, in the month of Aviv, you are leaving. 5 When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month: 6 For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord. 7 Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. 8 On that day tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ 9 This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand. 10 You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.
This is the bread of remembrance that became the symbol of Jesus’ body as broken on the cross. So it has double meaning of redemption, of sacrifice, and of community identity.
Practice:
Think about the routines that have developed in your job search. Do you start each Monday morning with an email scan and a cup of coffee? Do you end each day making a list? Do you carve out time for a run, a Bible study, or a meeting up with friends?
Now, think of a promise of God or an act of His faithfulness in the past that you want to remember now. Think of what you want to remember and how often you want to recall it.
Design a ritual of your own (or adopt an ancient practice if you’d rather) to commemorate God’s faithfulness and trustworthiness, so that you don’t forget it when you get discouraged. This could be giving meaning to something you already do (perhaps you add a quick stop into a church for prayer to run) or some new ritual you start (like watching the sunrise every Sunday morning to thank God for his faithfulness as creator). Implement the ritual and see it take root.
Note: This could be something you do by yourself or with a group. Rituals are great ways to get others who care about you and your job search involved in your living testimony. And when God blesses you with employment or other provisions, there will be more witnesses and those who will appreciate all God is doing in your life.
Pause:
What is a ritual that you do regularly either to commemorate a day, a place, an event, or someone you love? How will your new ritual help you remember a promise of God at this time?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________