Spiritual Amnesia?

Have you ever had spiritual amnesia?

I’ve been struggling with this “condition” lately, but honestly, I think it’s something we all wrestle with at some point.

I love reading about the Israelites in the wilderness. I don’t know why, but their story always feels so relatable to me.

In Exodus, we see God miraculously save them from Pharaoh’s army, and not in some small, quiet way, but in a full-blown God-sized miracle way. He literally parts the sea!

I mean really… if I saw that, I’d like to think I would remember that forever.
They walked across the ocean floor with walls of water on both sides!
How could anyone ever doubt Him again after that?

And yet, just a short time later, here’s what we read in Exodus 16:2–3:

“There in the desert they all complained to Moses and Aaron and said to them, ‘We wish that the Lord had killed us in Egypt. There we could at least sit down and eat meat and as much other food as we wanted. But you have brought us out into this desert to starve us all to death.’”

When I first read that, I thought, Seriously? You just saw the Red Sea split and now you think God can’t handle dinner?

But then I had to laugh at myself.
Because if I’m honest, I do the exact same thing.

My Own Wilderness Moments

God has provided for our business so many times.
Like, last-minute provision that could only have been God… not once, not twice, but three different times in the past few months.

And yet here I am again.
This month feels a little shaky, and what’s my first reaction?
I freak out.
I start grasping for control.

If you were reading my story like I read the Israelites’, you’d probably say the same thing I said:
“How could you doubt God’s faithfulness? He just provided for you!”

My husband and I have started calling it spiritual amnesia—forgetting what God has already done and defaulting to fear.

The Power of Remembering

Lately, God’s been teaching me how important it is to remember.

The Hebrew word for remember is zakar (זָכַר), and it doesn’t mean what we usually think. It’s not like saying, “Oh yeah, I remember when that happened.”

In Hebrew, remembering is active. It’s a choice.
It means you act based on what you remember.

It’s actually a covenant word.
Because when you remember the covenant and his covenant faithfulness, you live from that covenant.

That’s what I keep forgetting.

The Pattern of Forgetting

Here’s what I’ve noticed, and maybe this sounds familiar:

When we forget → it leads to fear.
When we fear → it leads to control.
When we control → it leads us right out of covenant.

And when we walk out of covenant, we start leaning on everything else—money, people, performance, strategy—anything that makes us feel safe.

My Own Example

Let me walk you through how this plays out in my life.

When I forget how God has faithfully provided for us, how He’s shown up right on time over and over again, I start fearing that we’ll run out.

Then fear pushes me to take control.
I start doing things my way, making plans, trying to fix it myself, and I forget to even pray about it.

And that’s when I realize I’m no longer depending on God.
I’m steering the ship.
I’m trusting my own wisdom.

That’s what spiritual amnesia does.
It sneaks up on you.
It feels responsible, even wise, but slowly it pulls you away from trust.

It’s a quiet drift.

Remembering Is a Choice

We all suffer from spiritual amnesia sometimes.
And when we forget, we start believing Egypt is safer than God.

Forgetting leads to fear.
Fear leads to control.
Control leads to idolatry.

But remembering—remembering breaks the cycle.

And it’s not just recalling information.
It’s choosing to live differently because of what you remember.

So if you’re wrestling with fear today, maybe you’ve just forgotten.

Forgotten who He is.
Forgotten that your God is the King of Kings.
Forgotten that you are in covenant, that He has promised to protect and provide for you.

It might not look like what you want,
but it will always be what you need.

So today…
find rest in the remembering.