Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 136 · May 16
God Remembered
“And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.”
We often read our own meaning into one word in this verse. When we say we remembered something, we usually mean we had forgotten it for a while, like a friend's birthday that comes back to us at eleven at night. So we read God's remembering the same way, count the years of our own waiting, and decide that all that time He had not thought of us.
Read the verse again: "And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob." When the Bible says that God remembers, it means more than calling something back to mind. In these first books, when God remembers, He acts next, often in the same sentence. Look at Noah: "And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged." The remembering is the start of the rescue. It never marks the end of a time when He forgot.
It is true that the wait was long. The verse before says, "And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died," and the slavery had gone on for generations. Moses is in Midian, and he will be eighty years old before he stands before Pharaoh. Yet once the text turns to God, two verses give four actions: God "heard," God "remembered," God "looked upon" them, and God "had respect unto them." Later He says it Himself: "I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel."
So the length of the wait was never the measure of God's care, though we have often used it as one. We have told other people that God has not forgotten them, while we kept a private count of our own years.
None of this needs working out today. The groaning in Egypt was not a polished prayer, and God heard the groan itself. So for a minute, say nothing at all, and let Him hear what you cannot put into words. The covenant He remembered was older than anyone's trouble in Egypt, and He has not forgotten His promises to you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 136 is Goodness and Mercy (Psalm 23:6).