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Don't You Remember?

             Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?  (Matthew 16:9-10)

          So you don’t have to look it up, those events took place in the last two chapters. Technically, we don’t know exactly when they took place within the ministry of Jesus, but we do know they happened less than three years from Jesus’ crucifixion, and they were sufficiently significant that the disciples should have remembered.

          In fact, I suspect they did remember, but that more than one of them wondered why Jesus was mentioning that in their current circumstances. What did that that have to do with the fact that right now, Jesus was talking about bread, and they had neither loaves, fishes, or thousands to feed.

          This is one of the problems we face in paying attention. We may remember when Jesus did something in our lives, but we don’t see how it applies to anything except the specific event itself, or perhaps to similar events. We fail, in short, to learn to the point of wisdom.  We either fail to connect things that should be, or we leap to conclusions and connections that aren’t there.

          Two suggestions come to mind in the combat of our failure to pay this sort of attention, and both are a form of study. The first is to examine Scripture, to become so intimate with it that we can notice the connections. The second is to study lives and histories of those who have lived before us – both Christian and non-Christian, alive or dead, as intimate as ourselves or complete strangers.  We can learn from their experience, or ours. But it’s hard to learn if we don’t remember, or make the connections. That’s why it’s so vital to write a journal. It doesn’t have to be a literary masterpiece. It should be a record of what happened, what decisions you made, and things that you want to work on. It may include victories, failures, insights, and questions.

          I’m working on this again. I decided I wanted to record what I read, watched, heard, and wrote. I probably should write down everything I eat, but at the moment, I’ll settle for getting a battery in the scale and including my weight. I may even try to come up with a form so I can just fill in the blanks. 

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