Remember and Fight

"Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes" (Nehemiah 4:14).

Remember. A theme God has revisited again and again in my life ever since I first awoke to it in April 2005. When God calls me to trust Him, He is not calling me to blind faith, to a wishful-thinking kind of hope. No, He piles up reasons for me to trust. A track record of millennia, carefully preserved for me to review and to feed my trust. Remember all the ways God has faithfully cared for His people since Creation? Remember who He is? Remember the Cross?

And then He adds to that nearly 30 years of my own history. I need only look back and remember His dealings with me personally over the course of my life--His preservation and protection and preparation before I even truly knew Him; His provision; His gentle, patient guidance; His constant, never-forsaking presence; His pursuing love, His faithful care; His sovereign orchestration of huge and small details. There is so much for me to remember of His greatness and His awesome deeds. If I will but choose to remember, there is no way I can *not* trust, no basis for fear.

And then--fight. Fight for joy, fight to trust. What strikes me here in Nehemiah is the call to fight for others' sake. My choosing to fight isn't just about me.

I fight for my brothers: to show that my God is all-satisfying, the only true source of joy and hope. To inspire my brothers and sisters to take up the fight themselves--to model it for them, to help them remember that our God is great and awesome.

I fight for my sons: that they may grow up believing in this great and awesome God because they see their mama loving Him, trusting Him, satisfied in Him, rejoicing in Him.

I fight for my husband: that I may provide the help he needs to take up the fight himself, that he would be able to spend less energy helping and comforting me and instead we would be able to fight the good fight side by side.

I fight for my home: that it would not be a pit of despair, chaos, unbelief and wasted time, but that it would be a haven for my family and for all who come to visit--a place where this great and awesome God is seen in all things, magnified, thanked, praised, trusted, depended upon, exulted in; a place where His person and work are remembered and celebrated and relied upon as the basis for living.

Lord, make it so--give us grace to remember and fight today.


Related:
Forget Not
Two Choices: Wallow or Fight
What We Forget; What He Forgets