remember — Bible — Andrew Forrest

Exodus 16:31-36

31 Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. 32 Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” 33 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.” 34 As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. 35 The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. 36 (An omer is the tenth part of an ephah.)

We are all in constant danger of forgetting that which is most important. You think, “there is no way I’d ever forget that lesson,” and then you promptly forget it.

This is why the Bible is so concerned with remembrance. Here the Lord gives specific instructions as to how Israel is to remember forever their experience with manna in the wilderness; because in the future, remembering will be essential to their survival.

This is one of the reasons why it is crucial that God’s people make weekly church attendance a non-negotiable part of their lives. At church every Sunday, we are reminded of that which is most important and that which we are always forgetting: the Resurrection.

P.S. Note that one of the blessings of their daily manna was that the Israelites were able to focus on learning to be God’s people. With their material needs met during their forty-year sojourn in the wilderness, they could fully devote themselves to formation.