There are things
we forget by accident.
And there are other things
we forget
because fear has become louder
than memory.
Israel is thirsty.
It is a real thirst.
Desert thirst.
Three-days-and-you-die thirst.
And suddenly Egypt
looks different in the rear-view mirror.
The sea has been crossed.
The chains are gone.
Manna lies on the ground each morning.
Cloud still moves before them by day,
fire still burns by night.
But all they can see
is the empty cup.
Give us water.
Why did you bring us here?
Did you bring us out
only to kill us
Fear becomes accusation.
Need becomes entitlement.
Is the Lord among us
or not?
Selective forgetting.
Remembering the thirst,
forgetting the sea.
Remembering the absence,
forgetting the manna.
Remembering what God is not doing
this minute,
forgetting everything
he has already done.
Perhaps this is how unbelief begins:
not always by denying God, but by forgetting him.
Moses walks ahead
with the staff in his hand
the same staff,
the river staff,
the plague staff,
the sea-opening staff,
a piece of wood
heavy with memory.
Remember.
Remember Egypt.
Remember the sea.
Remember the bread.
Remember who has brought you here.
And God says,
I will stand before you
at the rock.
Not far away.
Not watching from heaven.
Before you.
With you.
And Moses strikes the rock.
Water comes.
Not from a spring,
not from a well,
not from careful planning,
but from stone.
Life from the impossible place.
They called it Massah and Meribah
Testing and Quarrelling.
A name for what happens
when fear forgets grace.
We have our own Massah.
Our own Meribah.
The job.
The diagnosis.
The money.
The relationship.
Tomorrow.
And somewhere inside us
the old question rises:
Is the Lord among us
or not?
So we remember another hill.
Golgotha.
A body struck.
A tomb sealed.
And three days later,
life came
from the place
where life should not have been.
The cross still stands.
The tomb is still empty.
So tell the children.
Tell them about the sea.
Tell them about the bread.
Tell them about water from stone.
Because one day
they too will be thirsty.
And when that day comes,
may they remember
what God has done
and know
that he is still
among us.
Original message by Phil Lui
St Albans Anglican Church, Epping NSW
27 September 2026
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