A stoned life

Forgetting. It’s very mysterious thing when you think about it (holding a degree in Psychology means I have been coerced through the use of course credit into doing so). Why do we forget? How do we forget? It is in fact impossible to prove that anything is ever forgotten which has led some psychologists to say that there is no such thing as forgetting (somewhat ironically I have forgotten their names). They rightly point out that until you can prove that no prompting or time spent trying will result in recall (something that is not possible to do) then you can’t say something has been forgotten for sure, it may just be languishing somewhere in the grey matter, along with the date of your wedding anniversary and the day the dustbins are supposed to be put out. But outside of the world of theoretical applied cognitive psychology, human experience says we fail to remember things and it changes our lives consequently.

Take letters for example. I am shocking with letters. I forget letters a lot. My dad oft puts a letter on the radiator by the front door and asks me to post it on my way out. ‘I’ve put by the door’, ‘don’t forget it’ ‘don’t walk out without it’ he calls from the nether regions of his office. Who can guess what happens next? Somewhere in between my focus on checking I’ve got my phone, keys and wallet (the ‘Trinity of Materialism’ as I like to call them) I walk straight out the door without the letter, or if I’m lucky I pop in my pocket and then focus on finding the latest Mark Driscoll rant…I mean sermon on my ipod, only to come home hours later with the letter snugly tucked into my pocket, untouched by natural sunlight. Point is I forget things a lot. And it impacts my life be it by being shouted at for missing a meeting or having a extra reading because I forgot a lecture or walking back down the road to post the letter. God knows I forget things all the time! No really, God knows I forget things. God knows we all do. Just read Joshua 4.

Ah Joshua. One of my favourite guys in Israel’s history. In Joshua 4 my hero has just witnessed God glorifying himself in front of the whole Israelite nation by stopping the river Jordan flowing so that the ark of the covenant and the people could cross it into the promised land. I would imagine that Josh and his crew were about to break out into song and praise, a biblical version of High School Musical with superb choreography and music no doubt. But God wasn’t done yet. He hadn’t finished his intervention. His communications weren’t complete. Just as Josh was getting out his jazz hands (note: this is a dramatisation, it is possible that Josh didn’t do jazz hands) God spoke up:

‘Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight’ – Joshua 4.2-3

‘Ok…’ thinks Joshua, ‘seems a wee bit odd but God has just split the Jordan in two so maybe I’ll do what he says’…God continues…

‘Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.’ – Joshua 4.5-7

Seems an odd thing for God to do, no? Why make them do this? Same reason as my Dad tells me eighteen times where the letter is. He knows I will forget. I will focus on other things and fail to remember what the letter I’m supposed to post. ‘But surely the Israelites wouldn’t forget this. This is no minor letter. This is big. This is magnificent. This is God moving. Surely they are sure to tell their children and their children’s children?’ Think again. Turns out Israel was about as good at remembering stuff as me.

‘You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth’ – Deuteronomy 32.18

‘You have forgotten God your Saviour; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines’ – Isaiah 14.10

‘Does a maiden forget her jewellery, a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number’ - Jeremiah 2.32

‘A cry is heard on the barren heights, the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel, because they have perverted their ways and have forgotten the Lord their God’ - Jeremiah 3.21

Ah. They had forgotten God many a time in the past and had indeed gone on to forget God time and time again. God was onto something with this ‘memorial’ for Joshua. He knew they would forget because people forget. But he didn’t want them to forget this. So he got them to take a souvenir from the bottom of the Jordan to take home.

In my room I have this rain-maker. It’s a hollow wooden cylinder with rice inside. It makes the noise of rain, hence the inspired name. I was given it when I went to Argentina. It sits in my room and reminds me I went to Argentina. If people ask what is it I am reminded and I tell them. The same is true of these stones from the Jordan. A good choice of a memorial. God wanted the Israelites to remember what he’d done for them and for his glory. He wants to be remembered and our lives changed accordingly.

I wonder what God wants us to remember. What has God done in my life that He knows I will forget one day when the pressures of life kick in and when my focus drifts and further on, when new generations come? Will moves of God, big and little, be forgotten? What stones could be taken out of my life and put somewhere on display?

What about the ultimate move of God? What about Jesus? How will He be remembered in our lives? What He did for us on the cross? Do we have a permanent sign of His work and transformation in us? Or are we relying on memories of experience?

If this passage teaches us anything then it’s this: God knows we forget. But God doesn’t want us to forget. He wants His glory and love to us to be remembered, to be cherished, and ultimately to be passed onto those around us and new generations. Generations will ask me ‘why do you have that rain-maker in your room?’ and I shall recall all the transformations and miracles that God brought through Argentina. I don’t have a physical Jesus memorial at the moment and I think I should. Whether we can say we’ve seen God move in a big way or small way or not really at all, I think we all have a use for a Jesus stone in our lives that both makes people ask ‘why do you have that?’ and ask ourselves ‘why is it that I still do that?’

And I’m going to remember to post letters.