But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. [Deuteronomy 8:11 (NLT)]
But the people soon forgot about the Lord their God, so he handed them over to Sisera, the commander of Hazor’s army, and also to the Philistines and to the king of Moab, who fought against them. [1 Samuel 12:9 (NT)]
“Are you looking for something?” asked Earl in Brian Crane’s Pickles comic strip. When his wife, Opal, replied, “My glasses,” he suggested looking in her purse. “No,” she said, “I can’t find it. That’s why I’m looking for my glasses, so I can find my purse. I’m hoping that’s where I left my car keys.” Looking down at his grandson, Earl explained, “That’s why it’s a good thing women Gramma’s age don’t have babies.”
Being around Opal’s age, and having had more than my share of “senior moments,” I understand perfectly. Forgetting the Lord, however, is not like misplacing keys, forgetting where the car is parked, or failing to remember the grocery list. It’s way more than absentmindedness, an appointment slipping one’s mind, or drawing a blank at someone’s name.
Forgetting the Lord is a conscious choice to turn our backs to Him and overlook His presence in all things. It is failing to remember His past mercies and how much He loves each and every one of us. It is disregarding His commands and ignoring our responsibilities both to Him and to our fellow man. When we forget God, we rebel, grow impatient, act rashly or imprudently, or begin to think we are self-sufficient and all-powerful. As the Israelites discovered, forgetting God can have serious, even tragic, consequences. Throughout Deuteronomy, Moses warned them not to forget the Lord and yet, from Joshua through Malachi, we continually read of their unfaithfulness, God’s anger, and the consequences of their deliberate amnesia.
As happened with the Israelites, it’s easy to let challenges overwhelm us, wealth and power deceive us, busyness distract us, temptation mislead us, disappointment frustrate us, grief blind us, impatience goad us, and complaint to harden us. Before we know it, we’ve forgotten the Lord. Moses’s many warnings to the Israelites apply to us today. God accepts senior moments—but He will never tolerate our forgetting Him. God never forgot the Israelites and He will never forget us. Why do we find it so easy to forget Him?
God is mindful of man, and it grieves Him that man is not mindful of Him. [Charles Spurgeon]
In Ezekiel 34, the Lord commanded Ezekiel to prophesy against the shepherds of Israel—not the caretakers of sheep but the prophets, priests, and leaders who were supposed to protect their people in the same way a shepherd does his sheep. He accused them of not searching for lost sheep and abandoning their flock to be attacked by wild animals.
Mark, Matthew, and Luke all tell the story of Jesus calming the sea. He and the disciples had started to sail the five miles across the Sea of Galilee when a fierce storm struck. Tired from a day of preaching, Jesus remained asleep in the stern while the storm raged. As the waves broke and the boat began to fill with water, the disciples were sure they would perish. After they woke Jesus by shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” He rebuked the wind and the storm ended.
Earlier this week, the news broke that church leaders in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses have protected more than 300 “predator priests.” More concerned with protecting the church and abusers than helping the more than 1,000 victims or preventing further abuse, they failed to report allegations, discouraged victims from reporting abusers, conducted their own biased and faulty inquiries, pressured law enforcement to delay or close investigations, and spun their own versions of the events. Earlier this summer, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis agreed to a $210 million settlement to 450 victims of clergy sexual abuse there. It’s not just the Roman Catholic Church that has failed in this arena. It was just revealed that Willow Creek, a non-denominational Protestant mega-church, paid $3.25 million to settle two lawsuits over sex abuse by a church volunteer. No amount of money, however, can remove the trauma of abuse.
So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things through whom we live. [1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (NIV)] 
Recently, a pastor shared a troubling experience while at the annual conference for his denomination. Along with other ordained ministers, he was to vote as to whether or not candidates for the ministry would be ordained. While usually a gratifying experience as this ministerial board accepts people into their vocation, on occasion the vote can be heartbreaking. If a candidate receives a negative recommendation from his supervisor, he or she is permitted to offer a defense before the vote is taken. At the last conference, such an instance occurred and, sadly, one individual did not receive an affirmative vote for ordination.
Devotions of the Heart 