Gratitude Remembers That God Never Forgets

Every time I stop and think about the things that God has given to me through other people, the graciousness of people around me, I almost always remember someone who did me a good turn that I just forgot. I always feel badly about that. I didn’t write them a thank you or maybe I didn’t even thank them. I just totally missed it. It is hard to be grateful when you don’t remember. One of the functions of gratitude is remembering, being mindful of.

Psalm 105 is a psalm of thanksgiving and gratitude. It is about remembering. It begins, “O give thanks unto the LORD.” We are to “sing unto him” in verse 2. We are to glory “in his holy name” in verse 3. We are to “seek the LORD” in verse 4. All this is based on memory. Verse 5 says, “Remember his marvelous works.” Then, verse 8 says, “He hath remembered his covenant.” So, gratitude remembers that God never forgets. Verse 5 says, “Remember his marvelous works” and gives a string of marvelous works that God has done, all of which are part of a big picture, God’s promise to Abraham through which He would provide a Messiah for the entire world.

Remembering God’s marvelous works begins in verse 8 where it says, “He [God] hath remembered his covenant” and it ends in verse 42, which says, “For he remembered this holy promise.” So, gratitude is just remembering that God never forgets.

There are a couple of things to think about. First, God remembers through multiple generations. Most of us don’t even have a memory of a generation or two ago. We don’t know what God has done in the past, but God never forgets. In verse 9 God talks about Abraham. In verse 10 God talks about Jacob and Israel. Verse 17 talks about Joseph. Verse 26 talks about Moses. In other words, God remembers multiple generations. He made a promise that He was going to bless the entire world through the promise He made to Abraham about making of him a great nation through whom the Messiah would come. Sometimes we forget. I don’t even remember when someone has done some kindness to me a week or a year ago, but God never forgets. God’s credibility extents over multiple generations.

Second, God’s goodness extends over multiple turns. For example, verse 9 says, “Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac.” God has done some marvelous works. In verse 11 He says to Abraham, “Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan.” That is good for Israel. Verse 14 says, “He suffered no man to do them wrong.” So, God promised Abraham a land and He protected Abraham and those who came from him.

Then in verse 16 there seems to be a turn because God calls for a famine. Was a famine good? Not by itself it wasn’t. Verse 17 says, “He sent a man before them [the family of Israel that became the nation of Israel], even Joseph, who was sold for a servant.” Joseph was sold as a slave. Verse 18 says, “Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron.” Remember when Joseph was in the prison, thrown there by Potiphar for doing what was right? Verse 19 continues, “Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.” Before the dreams of Joseph were fulfilled, God’s promise tested Joseph. That was one of God’s marvelous works.

Verse 25 says of God, “He turned their [the Egyptians] heart to hate his people.” How could that be good? In verse 26 and following it talks about all the devastating plagues that God sent upon Egypt. Was this good? Well, it was. Verse 38 says, “Egypt was glad when they departed.” Is that good? In this case, yes. It continues, “For the fear of them fell upon them.” In other words, God sent a famine and a slave, Joseph, into Egypt to get Jacob’s family where he could incubate them into a nation in keeping His promise. Then God used plagues to get them out.

None of these things was good on its own, but it was part of a bigger picture. God hadn’t forgotten His promise to Abraham. As far as Joseph’s little part of this story, when his brothers realized that he was now second-in-command of all Egypt after they had sold him into slavery and thought him dead, Joseph told them, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

So, we are talking about memory. Gratitude remembers that God never forgets. His goodness extends across multiple generations. His goodness extends across multiple turns of providence, things we think of as good or bad but God has an entire big picture in mind. Verse 42 is the beginning of the end of this psalm. It says, “For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant. And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness. And gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labour of the people; that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws. Praise ye the LORD.”

I forget goodness all the time and therefore I am imperfect and ungrateful. But God never forgets. Today, gratitude begins by remembering that God never forgets.