Remember Me

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 142, Remember Me.

"Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service." Nehemiah 13:14.

Let me place you where Nehemiah was standing when he prayed this. He was no longer the young cupbearer risking his life to rebuild a wall. He'd already done that. He'd already seen the wall standing, the people gathered, the Law read aloud, joy restored. And now, in these closing chapters, he returns to Jerusalem and finds everything unraveling again. Priests making improper deals, the Sabbath being profaned, families intermarrying in ways that compromised the people's faith. And Nehemiah, worn out, confronts it all over again. He corrects the priests. He confronts the merchants. He rebukes the people, one by one if he has to.

And in the middle of all that — in the middle of the exhaustion of reforming, a second time, something that had already looked settled — he lets out this short prayer, almost a sigh: "Remember me, O my God."

That is not a prayer of pride. It is a prayer of holy exhaustion. Nehemiah wasn't asking to be seen by men — he had already done all of this without demanding recognition from anyone. He was asking to be seen by God. Because there is a kind of service no one applauds. No one photographs it. No one writes about it afterward. It is the behind-the-scenes work — correcting what no one wants corrected, insisting on what no one wants insisted on. And when you do that kind of work long enough, a quiet question starts to surface: is anyone seeing this? Does it even matter?

And Nehemiah answers that question with a prayer, not with quitting. He doesn't stop serving. He keeps going — but he carries the exhaustion straight to God. "Do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done." Notice he isn't asking to be remembered for greatness. He isn't talking about miracles or fame. He's talking about faithfulness — the ordinary, repeated, often invisible work done for the house of God and his service.

And this, my friend, is one of the most honest prayers in Scripture. Because there is something in us that fears being forgotten — not by people, but by God. Something in us that, after years of serving without a spotlight, starts to wonder whether it counted for anything at all.

The answer Scripture gives us, through this very prayer, is: yes. God sees. God remembers. God's memory is not like ours, which forgets whatever isn't spectacular. His memory is grace — He keeps every faithful act, every hard correction, every day you kept doing what was right even when no one was watching.

So today, I want to challenge you with the same honesty Nehemiah brought. Before breakfast, choose one act of faithfulness no one will notice today. It might be patience with someone difficult. It might be work done well that no one will praise. It might be a necessary correction you've been avoiding out of fear of being misunderstood. Do that act — and as you do it, pray quietly: "Remember me, O my God." Not because you need applause. But because He is the only audience that truly matters.

Stay close to God. Serve — then trust that He remembers. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.