Devotional from GEMS

What We Must Not Forget Over Summer Vacation


Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.Deuteronomy 4:9

In a web article titled, What I Forgot Over Summer Vacation, Lisa Tolin writes, “Most kids love the idea of forgetting about school during the summer months. But they may be taking that goal too literally. University of Missouri psychologist Harris Cooper finds that children typically forget between one and three months’ worth of schooling during the summer.”

In Deuteronomy 4:9 God warns us about forgetfulness! Like children, it’s counsel that may especially be needed over the summer months. Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

The Israelites had seen a great many things! Before their very eyes they heard the voice of God speak out of fire, and experienced miraculous signs, wonders, and awesome deeds (Deuteronomy 4:33-34) all for this purpose: That you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other (Deuteronomy 4:35).

What great many things have you seen God do? Reflect on your faith journey, this past GEMS season, or your most recent time in His Word. What things must you not forget or let slip from your heart as long as you live?

The God of power who performed the miraculous signs and awesome deeds recorded in the Old Testament is still at work today; we just need to have eyes that are watching closely for His hand in our lives and in this world. He promises that if we seek Him, we will find Him, if we seek Him with all our heart and with all our soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).

If life is really dark for you and you simply can’t see Him, and you don’t feel His Spirit in your life, stop and ask: Do I believe in God? If your answer is yes, then He’s there. We see by faith, not sight (Hebrews 11:1).

Deuteronomy 4:9 contains a three-part S command:

1.See God at work.

2.Store up that memory in your heart.

3.Set off to teach the children.

It’s not enough to have a glorious scrapbook of His deeds within our hearts; we must tell the children and the children after them. Summer vacation or not, we are commissioned to go and tell girls everywhere about God.

Prayer Step

Be faithful in telling children about Jesus this summer. Pray that they and we do not forget God.

"If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible that main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men had forgotten God; that is why all this has happened.’”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

These devotionals are available monthly on the GEMS Girls Clubs website.