Let's Not Forget What We've Learned

Slowly but surely, we’re making some progress towards returning to a more normal life. We’re not entirely “out of the woods,” so to speak, but we’re taking some encouraging steps – as a church, a city, a state, and a nation.

In a previous study, we learned how to handle the fears we may have in light of God’s love and care in our lives. This is a very important lesson to embrace as we emerge on the other side of this COVID19 pandemic. In this study, now, we’re going to learn another timely lesson. We’re going to learn the importance of remembering what we’ve learned through this unusual pandemic experience.

Through difficult, painful, and long-lasting trials, God intends to teach us valuable, lifelong lessons about himself, ourselves, our relationship with him, and life in general. In our desire to “move on” and leave our trials in the dust, closing the book and locking the door on them forever, we should be careful not to forget the valuable lessons that we’ve learned along the way.

God doesn’t want us to go through hard times for no reason. For us, we’re just glad to get them over with so we can move on. But God wants us grow, deepen, and change in our hearts in a way that influences our lives long into the future and for generations to come. Knowing this, it’s at times like these that we should pause to consider the things we’ve seen and the spiritual lessons we’ve learned before we turn the page and move on.

To do this, let’s take a close look at what Moses said to a new generation of Israelites who were preparing to enter the Promised Land after forty long years of wandering in the wilderness. He said to them, “Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren” (Deut 4:9). Can we respond to the things we’ve learned from this COVID19 pandemic in a similar way? I trust that we can.