God Cannot Forget His Children

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Recently, a rising political star was caught in an interview with her talking points written in the palm of her hand. In the heat and stress of a televised interview, she did not want to forget the three issues from which her campaign was borne. Pundits decried her cheat notes as being like a 7th grader cheating on a math test.

Perhaps, any public figures, politicos, pundits or preaches, at some time fears forgetting the words they most intently want to say. But, on a more personal level, a greater fear would be that we ourselves are forgotten entirely, or that we have been forsaken for another.

God’s people of Israel feared they had been forgotten and forsaken. Recall Isaiah’s testimony of Israel’s fears as his prophecy teaches them that the Holy One is a light to the Gentile nations as well as to Israel. Recall Isaiah’s inspired illustration, reminding Israel that God cannot forget His children; “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne” Isaiah 49:15?

Such intimate words course like blood throughout the message of Isaiah 49. Isaiah himself was “formed…in the womb to be His servant” Isaiah 49:5, and from his “birth [God] has made mention of [Isaiah’s] name” Isaiah 49:1. The words further speak of “children born during your bereavement” Isaiah 49:20, and of far more children being born than when Israel “was bereaved and barren” Isaiah 49: 21. Truly, God did not forget His first children just because He also chose to adopt every child from every nation.

With words akin to the intimacy of Solomon’s Song, what illustration could better described the impossibility of God forgetting His children than the recollection of a babe suckled at its mother’s breast? No loving mother ever forgets the bond borne through such intimate nurturing.

Perhaps, as His children who hunger for righteousness, we first perceive the baby’s longing for life from the breast. But, recognize that there are two sides to this kinship of mother and child. The mother longs for her child as intently as the babe hungers for her breast. A nursing mother, long without her child, hurts for the child; her breast is pained if the child is lost. Neither the mother’s heart nor her breast can forget the child. Neither can God forget His children.

Noteworthy among the words, “Can a mother…have no compassion on the child,” is the word for compassion – racham (pronounced raw-kham’). It continues to paint an intimate portrait of the kinship between mother and child. Its earliest usage meant to fondle and to love by showing deep, kindly mercy for a suffering child. God, with such compassion cannot forget His children.

Isaiah mirrors the maternal illustration with one of the Father, with imagery just as intimate as a Father’s tender hand. When you read, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” Isaiah 49:16; hear the pride of the Father in those words. He is saying, “See the proof! I cannot forget you with your names engraved in My hand!”

Consider carefully the inspired use of the word “engraved” or “inscribed.” This is more than a quickly-inked, cheat sheet scrawled across and hidden in His palm. This is as permanent as words cut into stone. Deriving from the Hebrew word chaqaq (pronounced khaw-kak’), the primitive meaning of inscribe or engrave was to hack; as used for cutting a tomb out of solid rock, in Isaiah 22:16. Chaqaq is also used as describing the work carving names into tablets of stone, just “as a jeweler engraves the signet” Exodus 28:11. And, just as nothing would change regarding Daniel because of the seal of the king’s signet, in Daniel 6:17, nothing will change about God remembering His children.

See the implications of our names being engraved into His hand. Would not the pain of hacking or carving our names into His hand be akin to bearing the pain of hammered nails? And, should we dare to imagine that by extension of the Isaiah’s illustration, the name of each one who becomes His child, still today has his name engraved in our Father’s hand. God cannot forget His children.

But, let us see the real issue of mankind’s kinship with God. It is not God who tends to forget. It is man who forgets. God did not forget Israel, but so often, Israel forgot God. And, His children today are prone to be no better. However, to those who seek Him, God has promised the means to remember Him. Jeremiah prophesied to the Jews and the Hebrews writer repeats to Christians this promise of God. "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, " I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10.

Whether or not we forget God depends upon how we answer two questions “Do we yearn for God, His nurture and His sustenance as strongly as a child yearns for the breast?” “Do we remember God as intimately as His name being engraved into our hands?” If your answer to those questions is “Yes,” you will be able to correctly answer the following questions.

Will we forget? Or, when all those around us chatter about and glorify sports or shopping, movie stars or cars, will we remember to glorify God?

When the world around us smirks, calling God a silly myth, will we make a defense for the true hope which lies within us?

When someone says the Bible can’t be true, are we prepared to prove that it is true?

When some brethren claim God’s narrow way is too narrow, will we convince them that the narrow way is also the sure and only way.

When some say that God’s plan for marriage or His design for our worship no longer matters, will we convince them that it matters to God?

When so many distractions and responsibilities clutter our days, will we remember a greater priority, the Great Commission?

If we are still prone to forget God, perhaps, it will help to remember the words which we sing, based upon Isaiah 49:15. “I will not forget thee or leave thee; in my arms I’ll hold thee; in my arms I’ll fold thee. I will not forget thee or leave thee; I am thy redeemer, I will care for thee.”

God cannot forget His children. So, if all else fails, let us write it on our hands, but never let us forget to talk about God.