Be like Jonah

Remembering Summer Series ☀️🐳

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but in high school I maneuvered my way through AP Literature by doing almost everything other than actually reading the books. As an adult now I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t read Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies, or whatever else was on the list. I did, however, become quite the connoisseur of CliffNotes, SparkNotes, and something with a monkey in the title—surely someone out there remembers what this was called.¹ Either way what I’m admitting is that while I am not an expert in classic literature, your girl knows how to summarize and that’s what I’m about to do.

Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash

In prepping this for a few days, I’ve realized that I have more content than anyone should squeeze into one weekly article. When I promised to give you just one week on what scripture says about remembering, I had forgotten the deep well I’ve been swimming in for a few years. There is A LOT, friends. So whatever you read today, please know this is the CliffNotes version of it and now many years beyond my AP Lit days, I can say with confidence that you should also just read the book.

Here we go…

What does scripture say about remembering?

The idea of remembering as an activity can be found almost right away in scripture. In fact, the first mention of it is found in Genesis 8 and 9 when God remembers his covenant with Noah, causes the flood waters to recede, and puts a rainbow in the sky. “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” (Genesis 9:16). The Hebrew word being used here is zāḵar (H2142)² and it means to be mindful, recount, bring to remembrance, or to think on. There really isn’t any hidden meaning in the definition. It simply means to remember and you can find it more than 235 times throughout the Old Testament.

But behind the simplicity of the definition we might miss what I believe is the critical detail of Old Testament remembering—there are two parties who participate in it. God remembers and his people remember. The cycle is rather predictable actually—God gives instructions to the people, they happily participate for a short time, then they start to forget, they get themselves into some kind of mess, they groan and wail, God hears their cries, remembers his covenant, and swoops down to rescue them. We see it with the Exodus, we see it in the wilderness, and we see it during the period of the kings when the people really perfect the cycle of forgetting and remembering.

“God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.” (Exodus 2:24)

When the Israelites do the remembering, they’re bringing to bear the reality of their dependence on God. The actual act of remembering is not flighty, ambiguous or passive, but concrete, clear and with great effect. Deuteronomy 5 includes some very familiar instructions and tucked away in verse 15 Gods commands them to remember that they were slaves in Egypt and therefore observe sabbath. In other words, remember their former status and how God turned it around so that they can rest. Or said another way, rest because I know who you are and I will meet your needs.

In order to truly rest, they had to remember.

Similarly Isaiah 44 is bursting with very clear instructions to remember. This chapter is essentially a depressing picture of what happens when the people forget God. Spoiler alert: they make idols. Verse 20 is particularly scathing: “Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?’” When the people fail to remember, they do worse than just forget. They trade the great gift of co-laboring with God in new creation for a deluded version of progress that holds no hope. It’s utterly clear to me that before the people could build, rest, and remain, they had to remember over and over again. This was of such importance that they built it into almost all the rhythms of their lives.

Photo by Clark Wilson on Unsplash

Take the office of Recorder within the royal courts as today’s somewhat obscure example of this. 1 and 2 Kings both mention a royal Recorder by name: Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud and Joah son of Asaph.³ I noticed this while I was preparing this week and guess what? The word used here for Recorder is the same word in Hebrew for remember, the one we mentioned earlier: zāḵar (H2142). According to a few different Biblical encyclopedias⁴, this role was not just a throwaway one, but one of great importance to the kings of Israel—specifically during the reigns of David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah. The Recorders held high rank as spokesmen and negotiators often drafting papers for the kings’ guidance in decision-making.

And their title means “one who causes to remember.”

I’m giddy in the nerdiest way with this discovery and I’m sincerely hoping this small detail stirs your thinking. When we briefly survey the Old Testament, we see that remembering was ingrained into the culture of the Israelites at the command of God and he also lovingly models for them how to do it. Even more, the command is for their flourishing—so they can build, so they can rest, so they can remain. And as I write this I wonder if the reason we often build things on sand and we’re chronically tired is because we’ve not truly made remembering a rhythm of our lives. We’ve become like the people in Isaiah 44 who don’t realize what they’re holding in their right hand is a lie. Yikes, what do we do then?

Be like Jonah.

Seriously. Remember the guy who got swallowed by the whale because he wouldn’t do what God asked of him? When he was quite literally in a pit of despair, he prayed what I think could be the most relatable prayer in the Old Testament. Overwhelmed, fearful, and just plain struggling, Jonah cried out to God and he remembered: “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you Lord…” (Jonah 2:7) And remembering was transformative for him both inwardly and outwardly—he was thrown up out of the fish shortly after.

Photo by Matt Hardy on Unsplash

I wonder how many of you have ever felt like your life was ebbing away? Have you been fearful and hesitant or overwhelmed and distracted? Today I’m simply wrapping up with a challenge that I hope will linger in your minds for the rest of the day: Be like Jonah. Remember. And like the Israelites, make your remembering specific and clear, write it down, tell someone about it. See how God may use this small act to assuage your fears, to help you rest, and to mightily equip you before you build something. Feel free to use the comments below as a quick way to do that.

Join me next time for some New Testament “remembering CliffNotes” and a quick podcast episode with some guided remembering resources & maybe a special guest.

Emily

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Jonah’s prayer

^1 [a]From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. ² He said:

“In my distress I called to the Lord,
    and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
    and you listened to my cry.
³ You hurled me into the depths,
    into the very heart of the seas,
    and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
    swept over me.
⁴ I said, ‘I have been banished
    from your sight;
yet I will look again
    toward your holy temple.’
⁵ The engulfing waters threatened me,^[b]
    the deep surrounded me;
    seaweed was wrapped around my head.
⁶ To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
    the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
    brought my life up from the pit.

⁷ “When my life was ebbing away,
    I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
    to your holy temple.

⁸ “Those who cling to worthless idols
    turn away from God’s love for them.
⁹ But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
    will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
    I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

¹⁰ And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

1. Please graduates of the late 90s/early 2000s, help me out on this one.

2. Strongs H2142 - More here if you want to join me in the rabbit hole.

3. 1 Kings 4:3 & 2 Kings 18:18

4. Encyclopedia of the Bible; McClintok & Strong Biblical Cyclopedia