We Must Remember

One of my very favorite movies is Remember the Titans. Have you seen it?  If not, allow me to set the stage.

The movie takes place in Alexandria, VA in 1971. It’s a time of incredible racial tension and America is in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement. T.C. Williams High School was federally forced to desegregate its school. Two coaches, one black and one white, were forced to bring their football teams together.  Despite all the obstacles that were placed in their path, the two men learned to work together and taught their team to fully integrate and become ‘brothers’ on the field. As a result the experiment was gaining momentum and the T.C. Williams Titans were rolling through their own league and the best teams that the state could muster. They were sitting on an undefeated record and just one win away from making it to the state championships. Several ‘old guard’ gentlemen could not allow this newly integrated team to accomplish such a feat and put a referee crew in place that would ensure ‘the right decisions’ would be made during the game that would stop the Titans from advancing.

It is in the midst of this clear referee interference and blatant favoritism that coach Bill Yoast calls a defensive team huddle and makes a dramatic and powerful speech. I can still hear the music in the back ground as the ominous plot has been discovered by the coaches. I can see the faces and body language of the Titan supporters as they dwindled and shrunk into their hands recognizing that things are not going their way. Even the boys themselves are showing visible signs of confusion and defeat as they gather around coach Yoast to hear what he has to say…”I don’t want them to gain another yard. You blitz all night. If they cross the line of scrimmage I’m gonna take every last one of you out. You make sure that they remember, forever, the night they played the Titans.” The music crescendos and the tone immediately changes as the boys do exactly what their coach has called on them to do. They make it their mission to physically dominate the other team and to wrestle control away from the corrupt officials and to achieve a fair victory for the Titans. And they win the game!

Every time I see this, I just want to stand up and shout YEAH! I want everyone to remember the moment when good triumphed over evil, when the good guys won!

You see there is something very important about remembering.  In the movie, whenever the black men would face racism in their future, or the white men would be tempted to discriminate against their black neighbors – they would remember this night.  That black and white could come together in unity.  When the hatred and poison of racism reared its ugly head again, as it inevitably would, everyone could remember this game and all that was possible through unity.

There is something very important about remembering for us as humans.  Darkness can be overwhelming in the situations that we are facing.  Remembering God, the truth of His Word and His unfailing promise is hugely important.  But it also seems that humans have “spiritual amnesia”.  We are so quick to forget what God has done.  We remember our fears, remember our doubts. . .and forget to remember the goodness of God in our lives.

I am reminded of a great story found in the book of Joshua where God calls His people to purposefully remember what He has done for them. In the fourth chapter of Joshua we are given a glimpse into the life of Israel as they are crossing the Jordan River and entering into the Promised Land that God had spoken of long ago.

God actually used this method of crossing, by parting the waters for them to walk on dry land, in the same way that He had used it once before to deliver the people of Israel from the on-charging army of Egypt. The purpose of utilizing this familiar technique is for one reason:  to bring back to their remembrance a very specific time where God had showed Himself as all-powerful on Israel’s behalf.

Moses was leading forgetful Israelites through the wilderness, who quickly forgot what God had done for them.  They allowed each new circumstance (hunger, thirst, weariness) to rule their emotions which in turn caused their actions to become disrespectful, doubting and full of complaints against God.  They chose to remember their own needs and wants instead of remembering all God had done for them.

It was now 40 years since then and Israel is standing at a new cross roads. They have a new leader, Joshua, and have been given another chance to trust their God and cross over to the Promised Land. A chance to walk in obedience where their forefathers had failed.

It is here that the children of Israel find themselves walking across a dry river bottom and seeing the hand of the Lord hold back the on-coming Jordan River water to allow for a successful crossing. It is the Lord himself that instructs Joshua to erect a stone monument to remember this river crossing. He instructs 12 men, one from each tribe of Israel to go into the middle of the river Jordan and grab a large stone from the river bottom. Then they will take the stone to the other side of the river and stack them on top of each other to make a monument. And when the people see the monument or their future children  ask why it is there, they will remember how God delivered them from Egypt and led them to the Promised Land.

As I re-read this passage I felt the Lord asking me the very same question:  what do I need to remember that God has done for me but I have so quickly forgotten or allowed my circumstances to cloud? What monument do I need to erect in my life to remember what the Lord has done?    

It is so easy for us to forget and get caught up in the details of everyday life that we minimize what the Lord has done as being ‘small’ or we forget about it altogether and focus on the new obstacle that is currently causing all kinds of problems.

I quickly forget about the $50 gift that arrived in the mail right when I needed it most and begin to focus on the service engine soon light that just lit up my dashboard.

I almost instantaneously move passed the encouraging word that a friend just shared with me on Sunday and become distracted by the frustrating email I got on Monday.   

We must do what God asked Israel to do - get in the habit of building monuments to remember what amazing things that God has done for each of us in our own lives. If we don’t, the lessons can be lost and the relationship with the Father can be warped and distorted, because instead of viewing our lives through thankful praise to God we only view our lives through the broken lens of pain and loss. I’m erecting a monument today – how about you?