Remembering

I went to get new tires on my car the other week and as I sat in the waiting area two women came in together and sat near me. Judging by the way they talked I could tell that they were good friends and held many of the same interests. One of them spotted a box on a counter and went over to check it out.

Inside were free booklets about various NASCAR drivers. The woman who spotted the box picked through a couple of booklets until she found one on Jeff Gordon. I thought she was going to fall out right there when she got her hands on it. She eagerly raced through the pages until she found something that she just couldn’t hide inside any longer: Jeff Gordon’s birth date. She proudly told her friend when it was and she even repeated it several times over, apparently so that she wouldn’t forget that most important date in history.

Now I’m not knocking on NASCAR or on Jeff Gordon, but I just couldn’t figure out why his birth date was so important to this woman. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know the guy and I seriously doubt that she was going to be invited to his next birthday party. But nevertheless she thought it was extremely imperative to remember when it was that he was born.

Remembering certain things can be very easy. I can tell you most about the latest football game that I have seen or even about a championship game I watched last year. But I also will struggle to keep all of the birth dates of my kids in the right order. I also struggle to memorize Scripture and I have an easier time remembering the words of a childhood song than I do the key points of the countless sermons and Bible studies and seminars that I have heard in my life.

It bothers me that I can recall basic unimportant dates and events yet I struggle to remember the teachings of my Lord. God certainly wants me to remember Him above all other things. In Deuteronomy 6:6 God tell us that the words He has given to us are to be kept in our hearts, i.e. we are to remember them. I need to make every effort to focus on what’s most important – my relationship with Christ – before I commit too much brain matter to things that really aren’t all that critical. After all, I’ll know exactly when Jeff Gordon’s birthday is when I get the invitation to his party in the mail.