Daily Word of Grace # 135 (September 21, 2020)
In Cormac McCarthy’s bleak but powerful Pulitzer Prize winning 2006 novel The Road a man and his son are journeying down “the road” toward the coast in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. At one point the man says to his son, “Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever. You might want to think about that.” His son asks, “You forget some things, don’t you?” to which his father replies, “Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” (12). As each of us travels down the road of life—sometimes through lush and vibrant beauty, other times like the man and his son through a seeming post-apocalyptic wasteland—we put innumerable things into our heads (or others do the favor for us). And yes, in many ways we often forget what we want to remember and remember what we want to forget. But there are at least two things Jesus wants us always to remember: first, that he loves us so much he died for us, which is why at the Last Supper he instituted Holy Communion and commanded that when we partake, we do so “in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19)—and second, that he is always with us, as he assured his disciples at the Great Commission, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Thankfully, those are two things we actually want (and need) in our heads forever.
Love and Prayers,
Dave