How Do You Connect With God?Paraugs

You connect best with God through remembrance. By remembering what He has done, you feel close to the Lord. Through remembrance, you enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. When you remember, you are given access to His presence. You enter into God’s presence daily by raising your Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7:12) - an altar of remembrance for how God has helped you. To you, remembering can look like going back in your journals at what God told you or did in past seasons, taking communion to reflect on His body and His blood, stewarding prophetic words, or partnering with the saints of past generations in celebrations and traditions. You are brought into God’s presence when a song brings you back to a past encounter with Him. You encounter the Holy Spirit when you remember His faithfulness. Remembering can look like intentionally looking back in history at the moves of God and partnering with them now. By looking back, you can look forward with hope for the future. Remembrance is something that God taught Israel. Israel was often instructed to reflect and remember before entering a new season. The act of remembering was woven into every part of their culture because when we remember, we worship.

Suggested Activities:

• Enter into your daily encounter with thanksgiving and praise. Take time to thank Him. Ask yourself, “Have I thanked God today?”
• Journal what God says in your daily encounters so you can steward His words and remember what He calls you to.
• Go back to old journals to remember and reflect on what God has done in your life.
• Research past revivals and Church history.
• Steward prophetic words by writing them down, asking God about them, and partnering with them.
• Write out chronological acts of God’s goodness in your life to see how He was present to cultivate thankfulness.
• Go back to a place you once connected with God, and do it again.
• Look at how Israel was instructed to remember. Research Jewish holidays such as Shabbat, Passover, First Fruits, Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, etc.

Encouragement:

You remember so you can move forward. Remembrance is a way that we can move forward with God in gratitude. Remembrance is not being stuck in the past but an invitation to recall God’s faithfulness, His presence, and past encounters that catapult you into new ones. When you remember, you can see who God is. When it is difficult to remember, invite the Holy Spirit to walk with you and show you His presence in the past. Ask Jesus where He is with you now and how He will lead you into your future.