Remember the Name!

If you know what the word "flannelgraph" means, you probably grew up in church like me. You know the stories as well as you know your own phone number, and you can find a Bible verse as quickly as someone can say "charge!" Or perhaps you didn't attend church as a child, but you're familiar enough with the stories to feel no concern for young David even while an 8 foot bully towered over him sword drawn.

We know the end of the stories so well that we shake our heads thinking of Moses arguing with God about his ability to speak to the Egyptian Pharaoh and of Abraham turning to Hagar to fulfill God's promise. But these early followers didn't know. Abraham couldn't see God's provision of a ram as he walked up the mountain with Isaac. And Joseph couldn't see God's promise from the bottom of the hole into which his brothers had thrown him.

We have our own tests of faith. Like Hannah, perhaps another month has passed by and you are still waiting for the baby you have been praying and praying for... Or maybe you feel your enemy pressing down on you, like the Israelites when their escape path seemed to dead end at the edge of the Red Sea.

Or could it be that you feel as if God has forgotten you like David did as he lay his head down to sleep on the ground of another cold, musty cave with the thought of God's promise seeming as distant as the moon in the dark night.

Yet David writes in Psalm 20:7 (NKJV), "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God."

When the physical evidence didn't seem to support God's promises and the odds were against him, David's strategy didn't rely on his possessions or his physical surroundings. Instead David remembered the name. He recalled the renown and fame of the Lord his God. Even before fighting Goliath, we see him “remembering the name” by considering the way God had previously delivered him from a bear and a lion. Filled with confidence from these memories, David set off courageously toward Goliath to defeat him (1 Samuel 13:37).

God has provided for you in the same ways. Do you remember?

Are you facing what seem like impossible circumstances? Do God's promises seem unlikely to be fulfilled for you? Does it seem as if there is no way out? Don't be afraid or discouraged; you know the end of this story too. Remember?

While you wait, God is at work. So stand strong, friend, and remember the renown and fame of your God!

Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. Psalm 9:10 (NIV).