We have all experienced moments when we can’t recall something we once knew. All our efforts to bring it back to our consciousness seem to bear no fruit. We fall victim to the failure of our memory. One method of permanent memorization we learned in school was repetition. Our teachers recommended repeating things consistently if we wanted to keep them in our memory for as long as possible.

The good things the Lord does in our lives, which we are aware of today, will fade from our memory in a few days, weeks, months, or years if we do not choose to use repetition or similar techniques to preserve them. We see in God’s Word that the Lord regularly reminded His people not to forget what He had done. The Lord wanted His people to keep the memory of His goodness.

“When you have eaten and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.” (Deuteronomy 8:12-18)

If the Lord took the time to warn His people against forgetting, it is simply because memory needs to be kept. Those who do not intentionally keep their memory will eventually forget. The practice of giving thanks helps to refresh the memory continuously.

Those Who Do Not Keep Memory Eventually Forget

In Deuteronomy 32, the Bible tells us about God’s people who failed to keep memory and ended up forgetting the Lord and His works. This forgetfulness led them to serve false gods and abandon the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

“Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek. They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior. They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God— gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your ancestors did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.” (Deuteronomy 32:15-18)

If the people had chosen to continually give thanks to God for all His blessings, they would not have forgotten that the Lord brought them out of slavery in Egypt and led them to the promised land, giving them victory over all their enemies.

In the book of Exodus, we see that God gave Moses a technique for memorization, which involved preserving a symbol to remind the people of what God had done for them. One of these symbols was manna. God commanded Moses to keep some manna as a permanent reminder, for generations to come, of what God had done for them in the wilderness.

“Moses said, ‘This is what the Lord has commanded: Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the wilderness when I brought you out of Egypt.’ So Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it. Then place it before the Lord to be kept for the generations to come.’ As the Lord commanded Moses, Aaron put the manna with the tablets of the covenant law, so that it might be preserved.” (Exodus 16:32-33)

If we do not make it a habit to give thanks to God continuously, we will eventually forget all the good things He has done in our lives. We will be like those people who turned to false gods. If we want to remain connected to God, we must not cease to give thanks to Him for all His blessings…

This text is an excerpt from the book “A LIFE MOTIVATED BY THANKSGIVING” written by Dominique MBOG.

We invite you to read the following article: “Thanksgiving is God’s Will for Every Human Being”.