Day 6: Your Memory & Your Heart (Ruth 1:6-7)
Today’s Passage: Ruth 1:6-7
Sometimes, I find my mind drifting back to an old event, even an old grudge.
Minds, our human brains, are interesting and tricky devices. A memory appears out of nowhere—or does it?
I want to suggest that there is a whole group of thoughts that we hold deeply in our “hearts”. They are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And while we may not “call up” each story individually, these stories work together to establish the narrative of what we believe about ourselves.
This narrative is often the filter that we focus current events through. Let me use an example. If we deeply feel that we are never truly accepted for who we are. If we feel that we always have to DO something, to fit in—then this is the filter that we will hear our world through. Does my spouse really love me, or must I earn it over and over and over? And then, Lord forbid they stop loving me, my narrative is powerfully reinforced that I can never be accepted simply for who I am.
This is one example of how we process the events around us and the events that happen to us, through a narrative or filter—it is how we see and hear.
What holds our memory captive is what captivates our heart.
In Ruth 1:6-7 we read that Naomi “had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food.”
She had “heard” and it caused her to up and relocate. Let’s dig in a bit. What did she hear? She obviously heard the famine was over and there was food. But read again how she heard rd it—her filter processed the plentitude of food as “the Lord had visited his people”.
Fascinating. Consider all Naomi has been through. Yet her memory is filled with the knowledge of God—she understands who she is, by who God is.
Let me be direct. Naomi would only hear her circumstances as the Lord visiting, if her heart were captivated and captured by God.
Let me be direct, again: Our hearts are captured and captivated by God in TWO steps:
STEP ONE: We receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior—and in doing so we are given new hearts by God…hearts that God literally says He can write upon!
STEP TWO: We drink in the Word of God. We allow God to write His Living Word on our hearts. When God writes on our hearts—we REMEMBER—He, His Character, and how He works becomes the Narrative, the Lens, the Filter…through which we live.
Consider all the times God tells us to Remember: Ex. 13:3; Dt. 5:15; 7:18; 8:2, 18; 9:7; 15:15; 16:12; 24:18, 22; Jdg. 8:34.
What is happening when we, over and over, remember? We are writing a narrative.
Let me ask: Do you remember all the hurts, and all the lies which flow from them, or do you remember God. We must edit out of our minds and hearts all the lies that Satan has planted through the hurts we have endured. I am not saying “forget” you’ve been hurt, I am saying “remove” the lies that flow from them.
Perhaps another example. When we are abused, we sometimes believe we lack worth. I am not saying forget that the abuse happened. I am saying throw out the lie about your lack of worth, for you are made in the image of God, and worth the blood of Jesus.
Brother and Sisters—we must do this work of re-writing our narrative—the world wants to fill us with lies and worse.
Consider what Jesus commanded, “Do this in remembrance of me.” What is the this? The remembering of his offering of His Body, the pouring out of His Blood—for you. It is one reason we eat and drink—we take Him in—we pray and plead, “Lord capture my heart, make me anew.”