God Never Forgets

“God Never Forgets”

Judges 2:11-16

INTRO: As we go through life we meet many people along the way and we learn many, many things don’t we? I would say in the time that we are in school as children is the time we meet most of the people and we learn most of the things we know. Now one might argue that we meet more people in our everyday life as we go about living and working. And that may very well be true. That as we go about working and living our everyday lives, we learn more than we ever did at school.

I guess the reason I mention school is because on one of my short breaks during the week, really late at night I got online and went to Classmates.com. I registered my name for the school I went to and for the year I graduated and looked at all the people on there that I went to school with. As I was looking through the names I could recall some things about people. I could see their faces and know how they did in school. Remember if they played sports, or where in FFA or sang in the choir and so on and so on. But there were some names on there that I didn’t even know. I thought, I went to school with these people, how did I go to school with these people and not even know them. I must have known them at one time or another, but I sure couldn’t remember them then. You see our memory fails us at times doesn’t it? We forget the things we learned and some people we knew and how to do some things that we used to.

There are those things that we once could do and now we can’t. Now I don’t mean those things we can’t do anymore because we are old and just can’t do them. I mean those things we just can’t remember how to do. But you know, there are some things that we just don’t forget how to do aren’t there. We don’t forget how to ride a bike, or to swim, or dribble a basketball and throw a baseball you know what kind of things I mean, those physical things that once you learn them they stick with you for life. Those are the kinds of things we can’t do anymore because of age.

But I’m talking about the things like we learned at school, like how to do Algebra and Geometry. We forget what the capital of Germany is, and what the state tree for Washington is. You know the kinds of things I’m talking about, those things that we learn at school that years later we can’t recall.

What about when you’re on the computer and you want to find a file that you just know you saved, but for the life of you, you can’t find it anywhere. Or not remembering those short cuts for copying and pasting or some other short cuts that you once did.

How about when you want to make a certain kind of dish. You know the one I’m talking about, it’s the one that was great last time you made it and there is no way, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t remember how much of this and that you put in it. And then your eating it and it just doesn’t taste the same and all the time at the dinner table your searching your brain trying to remember just how it was.

I don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to do something and couldn’t remember how to do it. It’s frustrating isn’t it? Just this last week, I think it was on Tuesday. My wife and I went to Kirksville to do some shopping. Now you’ll get an idea of just how much I go shopping for groceries from this little story.

ILLUS: My wife wanted to go to Aldi’s so she could get a ham there among some other things. The ham they sell there is really good. Anyway we get to the store and go in and I say, “How much are we getting, do we need a cart”. I always ask that because I hate shopping and want to get out of there as soon as possible. She says, “Yeah I guess we better have one.” So she sends me back out to get cart. I go out to get the cart, grab the cart handle and it doesn’t come free from the other carts, so I pull and little harder, you know how carts get stuck together sometimes and I thought that was the case here. But it’s about this time when I notice that all the carts are chained together. I’m thinking, why in the world are these carts chained together, how are you supposed to shop without a cart, and then I notice the sign that says something along the lines of, for security purposes please put a quarter in the little box on the cart handle. I’m now thinking no way am I putting a quarter in the cart just so I can shop at this store. So I go back into the store where my wife is and say, “Do you know that they want a quarter so we can have a cart to shop in their store.” She says, “Yeah they’ve always done that” I say, “no way have they always done that, it wasn’t that way in Sedalia.” Now I’m not very happy about the idea of having to put the quarter in the cart and am talking loud enough that a guy down the aisle hears me. He comes back toward us and says, “Yeah they have always done it that way,” I’m still saying that there’s no way I should have to put a quarter in a cart to shop at this store.