They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them
Nehemiah 9:8
“You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
“And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.
“But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
It is good to be reminded of who God is and what He has done. Do we believe it? He created the heavens, earth, and everything on it. He split the Red Sea and the people went across on dry ground. He gave mana from the sky each day. He gave water from a rock. He gave them good statutes and commandments. He led them by day and night. He made their 40 years in the desert so that that their clothes did not wear out. These are a few of recorded acts of God that were communicated to the people in a time of confessing, worship and understanding. It is good to be reminded of who God is and what He has done. Over time families and then generations forget and do not remember God and drift away. They forget who He is, what He has done, and the purpose of living for Him. I don’t see much difference from the time of Nehemiah to now. We don’t spend time in His word. We don’t live each day with awe and wonder of what His hands have made. We don’t live in His power. We worry about things rather than give them to God. We are closer to the culture around us than to being a light for it. God open our eyes to how far we are from living for you and guide us in a path that brings honor and glory to You.
