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| Kibera, in Kenya |
Remembering is a spiritual discipline. When we give thanks, it's an act of prayer often associated with something God has done for us. Prayer-remembering is about the past, and when that past is positive it is accompanied with thanksgiving. We remember how God re-membered us, how God put us back together when we were falling apart.
To re-member something, literally, would be to "member again" that which has become dismembered. Parts that were once together because they were meant to be together, but somehow got separated, are rejoined.
When I pray I am often re-minded (I am mindful again) of something that has "left my mind." God brings something to mind and I am re-membered. This is very good. It is clarifying and focusing when this happens. In prayer, in the God-appointment, God puts pieces of life back together again. God's Spirit achieves, in the act of praying, a great unifying.
I don't think you have to try or strive to re-member. Rather, as you consistently meet with God, conversing together in the slow-cooked prayer exchange, a re-membering will take place, by the Spirit. This has been and remains my ongoing experience.
This is good news and provides an incentive to pray. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put you back together again, but God can. As you pray God will put the pieces of your life and life in the kingdom back together again. (As some have said, to pray is to change.)
