Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you: bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 3:3
I dreamed that I was clinging to a doorframe. Behind me lay the passage I had just crossed; ahead stretched another corridor, then another doorframe, then another passage—on and on into infinity. Gale force winds howled within the hallways. I looked back and saw how many I’d survived, yet the thought of struggling through another one filled me with dread. I knew the moment my foot crossed that threshold, every hard-won lesson, every truth I knew would vanish from my mind. My memory would be wiped clean. The enemy of my soul would test and try me and because I would remember nothing, I would respond with fear and confusion. Then God shook me gently awake.
“What are you seeing?” He asked. I’d been struggling with a severe case of grumpiness the past few days. I suffered from too many sleepless nights thanks to one of my three cats deciding to midnight stalk my senior boy who—although he easily outweighs the little marauder—is a timid soul. I’d been fussing at God for not intervening, then I began dragging up every prayer that still felt unanswered to me.
“Aren’t I worth helping?” I demanded. God ignored that. Later, I muttered, “Sorry. I’m just upset.” Meanwhile, Sam was preparing to teach Revelation at the university for the first time. Mix in the current political atmosphere and both of us were overcome by a bad case of the jitters. Somehow, in the midst of kitty wars, political unrest, and performance anxiety, we’d forgotten all the times God had lifted us over obstacles and walked us through dangers. It felt as if He’d never helped us at all. Why did we forget? Why did fear have its fingers around our throats? Why did it suddenly feel like God couldn’t be trusted?
There’s a spiritual being—Anne Hamilton writes about it in her book Dealing with Ziz: The Spirit of Forgetting—that shreds memory. Ziz is an ancient name for a demonic spirit that causes God’s people to forget His past faithfulness. I think one way this spirit works is by focusing our attention on everything that’s wrong or may go wrong, then piling on old wounds and insecurities (resolved or not) until tangible fear settles over us like a poisonous cloud. We think the fear is ours, not realizing it’s coming from outside.
When God asked again, “What are you seeing?” I knew the answer.
I wasn’t in unbelief. I wasn’t even truly afraid. I had simply forgotten—just for a few days—the faithfulness of my closest Friend. In that forgetting, everything felt uncertain. But I know this: no matter the storm, He has always carried me through. So why was I agreeing with the enemy’s lies?
In my dream, I still clutched that doorframe, wind screaming, knuckles white. Taking a deep breath, I whispered to my heart, “Don’t believe the lies. Hold tight to Jesus.” I shut my eyes, wrapped my arms around the Lord, and flung myself forward—straight into the hurricane.
If you, too, have lately forgotten God’s faithfulness, maybe rejecting the lies and holding tightly to Jesus will restore the wonderful memories of the many times He has carried you safely through the storm.
Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me … Psalm 50:15
God bless and keep you,
Susan
