“Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced” (1 Chronicles 16:12, NIV).

At the beginning of last week, I was struggling through a time of great sadness. My older daughter was unemployed, now for over a year. With this sadness as a wet blanket over my spirit, it was my turn to teach Sunday’s Bible study. We were working our way through the Psalms, so I chose at random Psalm 86…drew it out of a pile of old lessons I had taught. As I read the Psalm each day, I thought of my daughter, focused on Psalm 86:17, and begged God to show me a sign of His goodness. Four days later, my daughter started her first job in over a year—clearly a sign of God’s goodness, but not the sign He most wanted me to see. Toward the end of the week, I pulled out my study notes from 1997, when I had taught the same Psalm. That week, 26 years earlier, my daughter had dropped out of college and needed a job desperately. I cried out then with the same need, with exactly the same prayer, “Give me a sign of your goodness!” On the week of that prayer, she found a job, just as now.

I am so incredibly grateful for God’s answer to my cry for help last week when He provided work for my daughter. It was clearly a sign of His goodness. However, the greater sign of His goodness was to remind me of His ongoing faithfulness with the same answer to the same prayer from the same Psalm, 26 years before.

There’s a beautiful story in the Gospel of Mark following the two miracles of bread and fishes. Jesus was crossing the lake with the disciples who were that they had brought too little bread for the journey.

“Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ ‘Twelve,’ they replied. ‘And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ They answered, ‘Seven.’ He said to them, ‘Do you still not understand?’” (Mark 8:17-21, NIV).

When God answered the prayer for my daughter last week, and then reminded me of the same answer 26 years before, it was as if He was shaking me and saying, “Do you still not get it? Do you have eyes that fail to see and ears that fail to hear? — I’ve got your daughter in my hands!”

My faith is so fickle, much like the faith of the Israelites centuries ago. He delivered, and they forgot; He delivered, and they forgot again, and He delivered again….

In my own life, from this experience and countless others, God is saying to me: “As you look forward toward all that I may do for you and all that I may do through you, do not forget what I have done before! I am the same God. My work in your past, along with my Word and my presence, should be the foundation for your hope and strength in the future.”

Dear God,

Let me never forget your faithfulness.

Amen