They quickly forgot His works;
They did not wait for His counsel.
— Psalm 106:13
Here the psalmist lays bare one of the most consistent and troubling traits of the human heart — forgetfulness. He is referring specifically to the children of Israel during their time in the wilderness, but what he describes is not unique to them. It is the story of all of us.
We Are Prone to Forget
The Bible is not ignorant of this tendency. Throughout the Psalms, the call to remember appears again and again — precisely because there is always the danger of forgetting. We forget the goodness of God. We forget His works. We forget the salvation He has given us.
This is exactly what happened with the children of Israel. Rescued from slavery in Egypt, they had witnessed extraordinary acts of God on their behalf — and yet it did not take long before they forgot what He had done. The psalmist tells us they quickly forgot His works. That word is telling. It was not a slow drift over many years. It happened fast.
And it usually begins with something wonderful. When the Lord saves us, when He provides for us, when He heals us, when He does His remarkable works — in those moments we are struck with awe and gratitude. But then, before long, the memory fades.
Psalm 103 speaks directly to this tendency, calling us deliberately to resist it:
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.
— Psalm 103:1-5
These are the benefits the Lord continually extends to us — and yet we are so prone to forgetting them.
The Pattern in Our Own Lives
We see this pattern clearly in our own experience. We hear the gospel, we are renewed and regenerated, we become new creations with new desires and new hearts. And then, not long after, we begin to forget that we have been forgiven of our former sins. Peter warns of exactly this in 2 Peter 1 — that if the qualities of faith are not growing and increasing in us, we become unfruitful, blind, and short-sighted, having forgotten that we were cleansed from our former sins.
We look at the children of Israel in this psalm and think it is remarkable that they could forget so quickly. But we do the same. We forget that sin shall no longer master us, as Paul declares in Romans 6 — and yet we find ourselves running back into its arms.
We see it in practical terms as well. When we fall ill, we forget that we have been sick before and that the same God who carried us through then is the same God now. When financial difficulty strikes, or social challenges arise, or life simply becomes hard — instead of remembering that the Lord has been faithful in these places before, we act as though this is the first time we have been here, and we are overwhelmed.
Forgetting and Not Waiting
The psalmist adds a second, closely connected failure — they did not wait for His counsel. When we forget what God has done, we do not simply stand still in our forgetfulness. We go further. Instead of returning to God and allowing Him to remind us of His faithfulness, we try to figure things out on our own. And that always ends in trouble.
Proverbs 3 addresses this directly:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.
— Proverbs 3:5-6
Beholding Christ as the Remedy
The remedy for forgetfulness is constant, deliberate beholding of Christ. As we fix our eyes on the gospel — on Christ’s life, death, and resurrection — we are continuously reminded of His love, His sovereignty, His holiness, and all the good things He has done for us. And from that place of remembrance, we naturally return to seeking His counsel rather than our own.
This is precisely why the Lord instituted the sacraments. At the Lord’s table, Jesus says twice — do this in remembrance of Me. When we partake of the bread and the cup, we are drawn back again to the gospel, to what Christ has done, to who we now are in Him, and to the goodness and faithfulness of the God who saved us.
May we be a people who constantly returns to Christ, looks to Christ, and beholds Christ.
Amen.
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