When Memory Becomes Worship—Transforming Moments into Monuments

A few weeks ago, my friend Brett and I hired a guide for the upper part of the Yakima River and spent the day catching some beautiful fish.  Every time we caught a fish, our guide took out his phone and took a picture.  When we finished the trip at the end of the day the guide Air Dropped all the photos to my phone.  There were 172 photos. We tortured a lot of fish that day. It was a great day.

What is our obsession with taking photos? Why do we fill our phones, online storage, and social media pages with pictures? We take pictures of our adventures, family get-togethers, and time with friends—even the food we order at a restaurant. I would say that as a culture, we are obsessed with taking pictures with our phones. Since 1888, when George Eastman produced the first amateur commercial camera, we have loved taking photos.  

Why? Because it preserves a memory. It is a tangible way of reliving a monumental moment in time. Whenever I look through my pictures at some of the big, beautiful fish I’ve caught, I relive the moment. It also makes me dream about getting back on the water, standing in the current, and taking in the beauty surrounding the river. It creates this anticipation of the next big fish that will tug at my line.

Remembering can elicit powerful emotions. If we remember and dwell on past hurts, trauma, or mistakes, we may feel regret or shame, but when we follow the Apostle Paul’s instruction to the Philippians, remembering can be a powerful tool for good.

Phil 4:8 (CSB)—Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things.

Paul says, dwell on these things, remember these things.

The instruction to remember the true and honorable is not a New Testament idea.  God frequently instructed Israel to remember His faithfulness.  Obviously, in Moses’s day, people did not have cameras to preserve memories, but God had an even more unique and powerful way of reminding the Israelites of monumental moments.

In the book of Joshua, the Israelites are about to begin taking possession of the land God had given them.  God had used Moses to lead them out of slavery in Egypt, and then He led them as they were nomads in the desert for forty years.  Now it is finally time to enter the promised land.  Moses dies just before entering the land. His second-in-command, Joshua, takes over. The Israelites begin crossing the Jordon River into the promised land with the Priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant leading the way.  When the priests stepped into the water of the Jordon, the water parted, and the entire nation of Israel crossed the river on dry land.  Then God gives these instructions to Joshua:

Jos 4:1-9 (CSB)—After the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD spoke to Joshua: “Choose twelve men from the people, one man for each tribe, and command them: Take twelve stones from this place in the middle of the Jordan where the priests are standing, carry them with you, and set them down at the place where you spend the night.”  So Joshua summoned the twelve men he had selected from the Israelites, one man for each tribe, and said to them, “Go across to the ark of the LORD your God in the middle of the Jordan. Each of you lift a stone onto his shoulder, one for each of the Israelite tribes, so that this will be a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ you should tell them, ‘The water of the Jordan was cut off in front of the ark of the LORD’s covenant. When it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan’s water was cut off.’ Therefore, these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites.” The Israelites did just as Joshua had commanded them. The twelve men took stones from the middle of the Jordan, one for each of the Israelite tribes, just as the LORD had told Joshua. They carried them to the camp and set them down there. Joshua also set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant were standing. The stones are still there today

God did not want them to forget this moment. He wanted them to recall the moment He parted the water for the second time so they could finally do what He had promised they would.

There were no cameras; instead, God chose stones.  Joshua put one altar of stones in the river and then gathered 12 stones that they carried with them so that each night at camp, they would pile them up as a reminder of God’s fulfilled promise and His provision.  

God says the reason for the stones is two-fold:  

It will be a reminder to you.

When things got difficult, the people needed to be reminded of God’s promise and provision. When they suffered loss, they needed to be reminded that God provided in the past, and because He was faithful yesterday, He will be faithful tomorrow because He doesn’t change. 

We must also take time to remember.  We don’t do Celebration Sunday because we want to pat ourselves on the back for the great things we’ve done this year.  Instead, we want to recognize what God has done this year.  He’s used me and He’s used you.  He’s used you, through your generosity, as you gave time and resources that He gave you to use.  You see, anything we do, we can only do because of Him.  Anything we give, we are only able to give because He gave it to us.  We want to remember what God has done this past year.

Because sometimes, life is hard, and when it is hard, we need these kinds of reminders. 

We often have the mistaken idea that if God loves me, He will bless me with a worry-free life—no difficulties and no hardships. And we think if life is hard, it must be because I’ve done something bad, and God is mad at me.  

What that mindset fails to understand is that sometimes the hardship is the blessing.  Taking possession of the land was no cakewalk for the Israelites, but learning to trust God and experiencing His faithfulness in the process was the real blessing. Remembering God’s faithfulness in the past is critical for us to move forward into the future.

It will be a reminder to your children.

The children who were not old enough to remember or maybe had not yet been born needed to hear the epic stories about the God who does what He says He will do.  They needed to hear the testimony of the people whose feet actually touched the dry ground in the riverbed of the Jordan River.

As we raise our children, they need to hear the stories of God’s faithfulness. They don’t have the privilege of our years of experience, and until they have their own stories to tell, they need to hear our stories. They need to see the monuments to God so they will ask, “What do these stones mean to you.”  

We need to dwell on, recall, and remember God’s faithfulness and provision—not only as a church, but also in our families and in our personal lives.

Ultimately our remembering leads to worship.  The response, when we recall all that God has done for us, is to fall down on our knees in awe of what our great God has done. How else can we respond when we look back and we are struck by all that God has done?

The response of remembering is worship.

Here’s an idea:  Everytime God does something amazing in your life, grab a stone and start making a pile near your front door.  Then, every time you go in and out of your house you will be reminded of God’s faithfulness and your children will ask you, “What are those stones to you?”