Remember God’s Rescue

Have you ever stopped to really think about how God made our bodies? He could have made us more like calculating robots with the ability to download and regurgitate information, but He didn’t. He made us fragile, with emotions and souls. He made us with five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. I’m sure there are a myriad of reasons our Creator did this, but sometimes I wonder if God created senses to help us lock in memories. To remember what He has done for us and through us. Has a song from decades past, a bite of your grandma’s cooking, or an old perfume ever transported you to locked away memories?

If you grew up in the church, you likely have heard the story of the exodus dozens of times, but we must not allow it to become rote recitation. Becoming apathetic to the miraculous work of God in the scriptures and in our hearts renders us without joy as believers.

Let’s slow down, and transport our senses to what the Passover experience may have been like. I like to imagine how it would have been if an Israelite woman had kept a diary entry at the time. 

“While I wait for either certain death or salvation, I feel tightening in my chest, giving way to self-soothing deep breaths. My thoughts race—will this be the time Pharoah really lets us go? Will Yahweh be all He says He is, or will His wrath turn on us too? It’s getting dark! Twilight is the signal…now silence, shortly followed by wailing Egyptians. I smell blood, bitter herbs, and meat wafting up through windows and under our noses. Has the angel of death passed over us?” 

I’m sure the Israelites thought they wouldn’t soon forget the drama of this night, but God knew they would without intention. Even in the instructions for the first Passover, He began to set up rituals for remembrance.

We forget, too, but thank God He does not forget us.

The rescue from Pharaoh’s slavery points to our even greater rescue from sin—which is central to the big-picture story of Scripture. The exodus Passover lamb also calls us forward to the Lamb of God that would be coming for a once-for-all sacrifice: Jesus, God in the flesh. 

John the Baptist declared: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

Take some time today to meditate on how God has been faithful to you. Look at the past circumstances He has worked in. Maybe they are prayers answered or unexpected deliverance. Hold these earthly blessings with dear thankfulness, cultivating remembrance to allow God to comfort you in current worries or unknowns.