Await and Arise Teaching: Strength in Remembering

You know we study the word and we dig to find God and to understand him better.  But we often forget to take a step back and reflect on our own stories.  How has God been good in your life?  This week we dive into the Psalms that the Israelites sang to remind themselves of all that God had done for them, all that he had walked them through and the miracles he performed to rescue them time and time again.  

What a marker that would be if we sang the songs of the memories of our life in order to remember what God had done for us and to praise Him for it all.  In the good and the bad we would see Him even more clearly as protector, provider, comforter, miracle worker and personal to you and I.  

I hope you are encouraged by this word and that you do step back and take note of all God has worked for good in your own life as you read through and listen to the teaching on the accounts of the ways he worked good out for the Israelites.  

Thanks for joining me, I hope you will go back and read the chapters and enjoy the teaching.  

Thanks for being here.  Please Like and Subscribe if this has blessed you!  

If you want to know more about Community Bible Study check out: https://www.communitybiblestudy.org/

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Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of Await and a Rise. Join me as we dive into scripture and just pause in awe of our good God. And as we give our souls just a moment of rest and refresh. Well, hello. Today I'm in an apron. I'm baking my bread and wanted to get this post out to you all with um the lecture from this week or teaching from CBS. So um this week we were in chapters 66, 78, 105, 106, 114, and 135. Goodness, that's a mouthful, but we are almost done. We have two weeks left of community Bible study and studying the Psalms this year, and what a great year it's been. So this one was on the strength of remembering, which is really it was so fun to do this teaching, to go back and to study and to just reminisce not just what God has done in the Bible and what we get to read about his goodness with the Israelites, with the disciples, with all of the um all of the stories that you read in the Bible of God's goodness and his working through people's lives, through um nations, through um his son, and all that that means for us, but then also remembering our own life, going back over the things that he's done in your life and the goodness that he has shown you in your own life. And so I hope that that's what this message does for you today, that encourages you to look back on your life, to reflect on what God has done, and just to remember what a good God we love and serve. And so I hope that you enjoy the teaching. Thanks for being here. Please go back and read those chapters first and then come in and listen to the teaching. Have a great day. Well, it's good to see everybody, and um, thanks for coming. So um, this week was on strength of remembering. And this week I had um, as prom was coming up for this weekend for our area, Josie and I were talking about prom and it I was remembering how um when I was a freshman, I had this awesome opportunity to go back to Kansas City and go to prom with my friend, and um that was a big deal. My mom and his brother had to get us 600 miles so I could go to prom as a freshman in Kansas City, which was a huge deal because I was raised in Kansas City, and in sixth grade we moved to Nebraska. Pretty sure my life ended at that point. I had all these hopes and dreams. I was I had it all worked out. I loved the high school that I would have gone to. My friend and his big brother went to that high school, so we were always going to their theatrical things, their they had a great choir, they had soccer, they had all the things that I loved, and I was like, I had it all planned out. Plus, I had friends from like when I was a baby, all the way up. I mean, I had it all worked out, but life changed as it does, and my family moved to Nebraska. Stupid, that was a dumb decision. Whose decision was this? Not mine. Although we did try. We tried, we had the for sale sign in our yard, and me and my girlfriend would go and pull it out of the yard, or we would stand in front of it. It's not for sale, it didn't work. We moved. Um, but um this going to prom was like a gift from God. It was like God saw me and He gave me just a little bit of what I had dreamt about back in that moment. And it was such a fun time. Um now, as I remembered it, was on Wednesday when I was remembering it, I um I saw that gift. I saw the gift of this teenage girl getting something out of that, like God seeing her. But also I saw something bigger on Wednesday. You see, my friend that I went to prom with is the friend that passed last spring from ALS. So as I thought on that memory and I thought of the fun that I had that night with him at prom and just all of the cherished moments there, as a young girl whose world seemed to be shattered by a move, but God saw her and gave her this one moment to be a part of this high school that she so desired to be a part of. But as a grown woman who now looks back and has a cherished memory with a friend who's now in heaven. Isn't that cool? As I thought about it though, I was like, man, it feels really close. I can't remember what exactly day he died. And I looked it up and it was that exact day. Now, isn't that cool? And that's how good God is. That in remembering we can see his goodness in our life and how he cared for a teenage girl's silly dream of being at a high school in Kansas City, all the way to a grown woman's cherished memories of a friend. All of that working out and then reminding me on the day. That's pretty cool. And that's what we see this week as we study these chapters. God continually saying, remember, remember what I've done for you, because if you remember, you can see the good that I have done in your life. And that's the same for you and I too. As we look back on our life, we can see when we remember what we've walked through the ways that God's hand has gone before us and cared for us, the ways that He has provided a way through what we thought might be impossible. But look at what we studied this week. Um, Catherine sent me a thing this morning from the Bible recap, and I thought it was really cool how they said that God didn't just take them and rescue them out of Egypt, but he took them through the sea. And how cool is that that by remembering we look back and go, that actually is impossible. You want us to go through the sea, and God's like, yeah, it's gonna be good. And you're gonna remember it and remember it was me that did this for you, and I am good. And that's the same in our life. Sometimes He's gonna take you to the sea, right? And it will be impossible for you, but not for God. So remembering, let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much that you you do, you do so much good for us and you provide for us, and you walk before us, you walk with us, and Lord, that you cause us to remember so that we can remember the good that you have done in our lives, the good God that you are, and so we can give you praise and glory. Lord, I pray it be your words and not mine today. Amen. So these chapters started out with sing his praise for all he has done, give your ear, we will tell the generations to come what he has done. They tell him good and bad, they tell him everything, so that you remember the goodness of God, the glorious deeds of God, and then give thanks to the Lord and praise the Lord. And then Judah is his sanctuary and Israel his dominion, so we house the Lord and then praise the Lord. So for generations, history was not written down, which is kind of crazy for us because we look at it and we see I mean, how many Bibles do you have in your house? Maybe a couple, right? It's been written down for us, so it seems odd that it wouldn't have been written down. But the printing press was developed in 1439. 1400. So that means 1400 years after Jesus, the printing press came. Well, Abraham came 2,000 years before Jesus. So for at least 3,000 years, they did not write things down on the major. Most everything was done by or told by story or narrative back to their cultures. That's how they passed on information. They had scrolls and things, but it was a really special thing if you got to see the scrolls with scriptures, right? Those were sacred. So everything was a story, a narrative. That's how they passed on the information. In chapter 114, we read that Judah became his sanctuary and Israel his dominion. The people of the Lord were his house, his voice, his representation, his light to the world. That hasn't changed. So they sang these songs to remember, to be reminded of God that they serve and what he has done. And not just for the nation, but for the individual, what he had done individually in people's lives, right? So remembering is strength because remembering reminds us what has been done, what can be done, and who has always been working for our good. Now in 2016, my family moved here to Gillette. In the spring of 2017, CBS used to have these really fun conferences. Um they got they've just gotten really big, and so it's hard to put on these conferences anymore. So they do them on a smaller scale now, but they have these leadership conferences. So if you're in leadership, you could go every four years to these conferences in Colorado, or maybe had they had a couple, I don't remember. But we went in 2017, spring of 2017. So I was actually exiting. I was no longer gonna be the ATD because we lived here, and that'd be really hard to be the ATD in Spearfish. So um I was exiting, and we'd been praying about what that meant for me, for CBS, for Gillette, all of those things. But when we went to this conference, a bunch of us went. We took two cars, and one of the cars was mine. I had a Tahoe, and um, so, anyways, that's what we drove. And while we were there, um we just had a really fun time. And um, a lot of memorable things, right? You know, the fun girl trips that you take. Okay, so as we decided to leave, um, the two cars filtered out who was going to stay and do a little shopping, the young gals, and who was gonna go home, the older gals. Except there was one older gal that decided to stay and do some shopping with us. Pretty sure she regretted that decision later on. Um, on our way back, I-25 was jammed. And we were probably a half hour out of the Wyoming border, you know, like we were right there. And I don't know if you've ever driven that stretch before, but the ditch is kind of flat. And there's a frontage road on the other side, right? How many of you know me? Uh-huh. So we're in the Tahoe, and I look at my co-pilot, Michelle, and I say, should I? And she says, do it. And I did it. The wheel and I hauled it across the ditch. And we were really proud of our decision. We got to the frontage road, and we were driving, and we're passing all of those suckers that are stuck in traffic. Ha ha ha, look at us. We're passing all of you. And she said, and poor Donna. Donna, her face was white. She was regretting all of her decisions that day. She was like, Why did I not go with the older ladies? And um I was like, You're okay, Donna, we're fine. And no one pulled us over, so we were fine. Michelle says, Man, that's crazy because I have heard that they put spikes in those ditches so you don't cross them. About a mile down the road, we were stranded with a flat tire. And then we were watching all the cars go past us. So, um, anyways, I've made a lot of poor decisions like that in my life. Um, so it wasn't that notable. But there were a lot of stories that came out of that day, right? There were a lot of things that happened. We had an old cowboy that pulled in and tried to help us. The tire on my Tahoe, the spare tire, is up under the undercarriage. And so it has to be unbolted and pulled down. Well, we're like five women. We are not getting up under there, and it's not working out. I tried, it was not coming off. That old cowboy, he got under there and he tried. He bloodied up his arm trying, poor sweet guy. And then he was just like, he just, he just felt really awkward because there was all these girls that are like, we just thank you so much, and he's like, You're all weird, you know, and scared him right off. Um, so here the tire is half hanging down, won't come off. So it's a danger to us to even drive the vehicle at this point. Because if we're going down the road at 80 miles an hour and it decides to come off, guess what happens? Whoop, whoop, that's what happens. Our car would flip right over on top of itself. So we're super like super stuck. And Nola, she's her husband, is a pilot, so she's like, I think he can fly down here and get us, and we just leave your car, and I'm like, I can't leave my car in Colorado. But you know, that was that's where we were. So lots of stories. But here's what's cool. So the couple that we stayed with the last um day, um, they left later than us. And Nola, who was on her phone on the side of the road, and she's beautiful, so you notice her. She was on her phone, and they saw her from the hot interstate, and they were like, Look at that pretty girl. And then they were like, Oh, that's Nola. Oh, those are our ladies. And they pulled over, they took me to Cheyenne, I got a new tire, and they followed us all the way back to Spearfish. And we got back into Spearfish about two o'clock in the morning that morning. And my father-in-law, when he looked at the car and he fixed it for us, um, he said, You know why these things happen, Ange? And I said, So you don't cut the ditch? And he said, No, so you don't forget. Well, that weekend was the weekend that that prayer came to a head. That was the weekend that I knew I was being called to start a prayer group here in Gillette. And those women encouraged me, prayed for me, prayed for us, and sent us off to start this group. Now, how cool is that? Because I will not forget that story. And that story marks the start of this story. God is good. And remembering is strength because it reminds us of what he has done, what he will do, and what he continues to do, and who it is that works for our good. Right? So just like that, verses 40, or there's 45 verses in 105, the chapter 105 in Psalms, 48 verses in chapter 106, and they recount all God has done for Israel. All he had done just to pave the way, um, but not just to pave the way, but also to walk with them. Remember, he was a cloud by day and a fire by night. He provided manna, he got water out of the rock, he was with them in it, just like he is with you and I. You see, we have the Bible, which is so cool, that reminds us of who he is and who he was for the Israelites, for the disciples, for all of those stories, but we have also him in our story. We get to remember our story and see the goodness of God. And that is strength, because that makes us, you and I, look at these stories and go, wow, God, you were amazing to the Israelites. You were amazing in your when Jesus was walking, but you are also amazing today. And that is strength, because that makes us praise God. Right? Remembering is strength because it reminds us what he has done, what he can do, and who it is that's always working for our good. God shows us again and again his redemptive and adoptive character. In 114, we read that verse that talks about Judah being the sanctuary and Israel his dominion. And this is a remark that after they were removed from Egypt, after they were rescued, right, from years of slavery, God not only saved them, but he made them a people that would be his resting place and made them a people that would be his representation, his light to the world. He reigned in their midst, delighted to dwell among them, and he established a direct relationship with them. So this story and the truth reminds us that rescue from bondage brings the believer closer in fellowship with their Lord. Is that true for you in your life too? When you look back on what he's done in your life, doesn't it make you go, man, God, you are good? And there's still some hard stuff that we're walking through, right? But he is good and he is faithful. Ephesians 2.19 through 22 says, God reigns within us, fulfilling his redemption plan, not just to save us, but to make us his own people, to set apart, to give honor and to praise him. That's the New Testament, guys. That's for you and me. We read all about the Israelites and what God had done for them, but don't forget what he's done for you. In 1 Peter 2.9 says, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. 2.10 goes on to say, Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received his mercy. Nothing is better than that. We too can proclaim God's sanctuary and dominion in us. We are God's workmanship created for his purpose, and it's a good purpose. We are his holy people through Jesus Christ. So we get to look back on our lives and we get to glory in all that he has done through us, and we get to remember what he has done through us, and then we get to look at the hope-filled future he has for us. He is a good God, and he has good for you. As 135 reminds us, his name endures forever throughout all the ages. He is God over all. In the heavens, on earth, in the seas, all of the deeps. God is in charge of all creation, nature, and he is the one that strikes down his people's enemies. Remember, we looked at 135 and it said, like Egypt and the Amorites and Canaan, he gave us a heritage in him. He makes us a people through him and by his son. You and I are grafted in. And that is a cool story. And in that, we are his children. The children of God. We are vindicated by him. He has compassion for us, and he leads us and he walks with us. So I want you to look back on your life, the hard and the easy times, the good and the bad times. I want you to taste and see that God is good. Amen. God is good. Philippians 1, 6 says this He who began a good work in you is faithful and just to bring it to completion until the day of Jesus Christ. So remember, because remembering is strength, because remembering reminds us of what has been done and what can be done and who it is that has good for you. Let's pray. That you are ever present in our lives. That if we look back and we see all the ways that you have worked out miraculous things for us, all we would have is praise for you. Lord, I pray that we would not forget, but that we would be strengthened in the remembering of how you have worked not just in the word and in the lives of your people and in the lives of the New Testament people, but also in our lives, Lord. You are intentionally specific to each one of us. That you work in our lives personally. Lord, thank you. Thanks for joining me today. If your soul was refreshed by this pause in the word, then I hope that you'll continue to join me weekly for these await and arise meditations. My hope is that this podcast space will be a reprieve for you to just take a pause away from the world, to be refreshed in the word, and to await in the presence of a good God. Would you go to the comment section and leave a word or a scripture that's lifted you up this week? I really do love to see how God is working in all of our lives. And my desire is to see that this space just grows as a community of people who come together and encourage each other in the word. I want to see him working in all of us. It's just such a sweet reminder that we are all in this together. And God, he goes before us. So until next time, I'm praying your heart stays anchored in his truth. A Wait and a Rise podcasts are available on all podcast players. If you would like to see Ange, me as I teach weekly live, click on my YouTube channel or go to my webpage, angleraber.com, and you can find those episodes there. Meditations come out each week on Thursday, and live teachings are weekly on Monday, and I post those on Tuesday. We hope that you'll subscribe and feel free to share this episode with family and friends and on social media. For more information for connecting with a community Bible study in your area, you can also click those links below. You can join a connect group online or you can find a community Bible study in your town or in your area that you can join in person. It is so important to be in the Word, meditating on it and studying it for yourself. So it is my encouragement to you to find a Bible teaching church and an in depth Bible study and dig in. Thanks for listening. Now, await in his presence and arise to his call.