Thursday

For the past decade, Bell, a Microsoft researcher, has been “moving” the data from his brain onto computers. The process is much more involved than saving digital pictures and e-mails. Bell carries around video equipment, cameras, and audio recorders to capture his conversations, commutes, trips, and experiences. He has used a SenseCam—a device being developed by Microsoft that a person hangs around his neck to record automatically every detail of life in photo form. And Bell has been saving almost everything, from restaurant receipts to correspondence, bills, and medical records. 

Thus far Bell has accumulated a mountain of data—more than 350 gigabytes, not including the streaming audio and video. He describes the storage of information as a replica of his biological memory. It’s actually better, he says, because if you back up your data in enough places, this digitized “e-memory” never forgets. It’s like having a multimedia transcript of your life. Bell hopes that by developing and implementing this process, people will not have to fret about storing the details of their lives in their heads anymore; they can save the details on their computer and recall it at will.

Do we really want to remember every detail of our lives? After all, we make many mistakes (Romans 3:23). Sure, we want to learn from our mistakes, but do we want to be reminded of them constantly? Aren’t there things that we’d like to forget and know that they won’t be held against us?

There is one who has infallible, total recall: God! “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). God will recall everything we have done and hold us accountable for every impure thought, idle word, and evil deed  (Acts 17:31; 2 Corinthians 5:10).

Unless . . . the memory of our sins has been erased through the sacrifice of Christ. The Old Testament prophets foretold the time when God would establish a new covenant with His people that contained this promise: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34; cf. Hebrews 8:12). On Judgment Day, the Lord will not recall those sins covered by the blood of Jesus. Are you covered? —David A. Sargent

“I will forgive their iniquity,

and I will remember their sins no more.”

~Jeremiah 31:34~

Prepare yourself for the cold weather we will soon have.  Prepare yourself for eternity.  The latter is even more important than the first!

Anna Lee