Remind Me Again

So it came up in church again recently, the whole phrase of praying back to God His own word.  In other words, reminding Him of what he has said.

I’ve never really contemplated this idea, mostly because I”m not so sure that I bought in to it.  Does God really need me to “remind” him of what He has said?  Like I think He has forgotten, or something?  I’m pretty sure that He, as God, has got a pretty good memory without my help.

But then I had a mini-revelation.  Mini, because it wasn’t necessarily earth-shattering, but revelation none-the-less.

One of the ways I personally relate to what the Bible says is to look at it through the eyes of being a parent, now that I am one.  Could I sacrifice my son for the sins of others?  Would I give my son a rock, when he asked me for bread?  Don’t I want to give my son good and wonderful things?  Wouldn’t I want my son to live in perfect health?  I can understand God’s love for me a little better, being His daughter, by looking at how I feel about my son.

So, back to the original idea here.  Does God really need us to remind him of what his word says, as though he’s forgotten it?  No, of course not.  Do I really need Marshall to remind me of what I’ve said? (Well, sometimes, yes, I forget what I have said, but that’s not the point!)  Marshall tells me what I said.  It spurs me to action.  99.999% of the time he’s right, and I have to say, “Ok,Ok, if you’ll quit asking me, I’ll do it!  You’re right, I did promise you that and I am happy to do it for you because you remembered my words.”

Get it now?  Am I making sense?  Well, my revelation continued tonight in pondering these thoughts.  The finale’ to the revelation is this:  God doesn’t need us to tell Him what He said; He knows what He said.  Maybe He wants us to say it back to Him, just to see if we’ve been listening.  Do WE know what He said?  CAN we say it back to Him?  WILL we ask and ask and ask until He says, “OK, Ok, I hear you.  I hear that you “got it” now and I can be spurred into action.”  I like to hear Marshall tell me what I said; it means he was listening to me!

Deep theology, this is not.  But, I think it is something to think about.  What do you think?