I Forgot What?

INTRODUCTION — THE DAY I FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT

There’s a small story that still follows me around, even years later. It’s one of those stories that begins harmlessly—nothing dramatic, nothing tragic, nothing you’d write in your journal unless you were trying to laugh at yourself.

It happened on an ordinary morning, on an ordinary road, on an ordinary rushing kind of day. And like most modern people, I thought I had everything under control. I had a plan. I had a schedule. I had devices to remind me of my reminders. I had alarms for my alarms. I had everything… except what mattered.

I was driving across town on a Friday morning. I had three stops to make. I had a meeting. I had messages waiting. And somewhere between the second traffic light and the third cup of coffee, it happened.

My phone buzzed.

My dashboard chimed.

And suddenly the car behind me blasted its horn for reasons that were probably my fault.

I pulled over for a moment, took a breath, and tried to get my bearings.

And that’s when it hit me.

I had forgotten something important. Not my wallet. Not my keys. Not my appointment. Not my phone charger. It was something deeper than that. Something heavier. Something that doesn’t fit in your pocket or your glove compartment.

I had forgotten myself.

I had forgotten who I was trying to be. I had forgotten the peace I claimed to believe in. I had forgotten the priorities I preached to others. I had forgotten the quietness of heart I told people to pursue. And in that moment—flustered, frustrated, irritated, and running late—I found myself whispering a sentence I wasn’t expecting:

“How does a person forget what matters most?”

And it’s funny—because forgetting isn’t something we do on purpose. It sneaks up on us. It creeps in sideways. It slips between the cracks of responsibility, habit, routine, and noise. You look away for a moment, and the thing you needed most has been pushed to the bottom of the pile.

We forget birthdays.

We forget passwords.

We forget why we walked into the kitchen.

We forget to return calls.

We forget names seconds after hearing them.

We forget what we promised ourselves we would never forget.

But there is something far more dangerous than forgetting an appointment.

There is the forgetting of the soul.

There is the forgetting of identity.

The forgetting of origin.

The forgetting of purpose.

The forgetting of relationship.

The forgetting of the God who formed you from dust and breathed His life into your lungs.

We forget who He is.

And we forget who we are.

The older I get, the more I realize that humanity’s greatest spiritual problem is not rebellion—it is forgetfulness.

Before people stop serving God, they forget why they ever loved Him. Before they stop worshiping, they forget who they’re worshiping. Before they break covenant, they forget the covenant’s story. Forgetting comes first… and everything else follows.

And so the question presses in on us:

“What have we forgotten?”

Humanity has forgotten many things. But Scripture says there is one thing—one day—one truth—that God knew we were most likely to misplace.

The day God told us to remember

… is the day the world forgot.

And to understand why this matters, we must take a journey back—back beyond our routines, our stress, our alarms, our schedules—back to the place where God Himself wrote a word in stone.

And He didn’t just write a command.

He wrote a reminder.

Four thousand years before smartphones were invented… God said, “Remember.”

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THE HUMAN CONDITION — THE TERRIBLE CHOICE

Philosophers have a phrase for the human dilemma. They call it “the terrible choice.” It’s the idea that every moment of life places you at a crossroads, forcing you to choose between paths that lead toward righteousness or rebellion, wisdom or foolishness, selflessness or selfishness, life or death.

You choose with your words.

You choose with your impulses.

You choose with your desires.

You choose with your reactions.

You choose with your patience.

You choose with your silence.

You choose with your time.

And the world as we know it—the brokenness we lament, the violence we fear, the injustice we witness, the sorrow we feel—is largely the result of wrong choices repeated until they become culture.

People don’t set out to destroy themselves.

They simply forget who they were meant to be.

They lose the thread.

They drift.

And drifting happens because we choose without truth.

We react without reference.

We live without a center.

We function without a hub.

If you’ve ever watched a wheel whose hub is missing or cracked, you know what happens: everything wobbles. Everything strains. Everything pulls away from the center. A person without a spiritual hub will live unbalanced, pulled by circumstances instead of anchored by truth.