Have you ever said to yourself, “I should write it down”, but then never did? 

What generally happens is that thought, idea, or action disappears from your memory. 

It happens to me regularly.

I keep telling myself that I need to “write it down” but so often I don’t. In fact I had an idea for a post a few weeks ago and thought I should write it down. I didn’t.

This morning when I sat down to finally get at it, all I could remember was that I had had a great idea for a blog post. I had no recollection of what that idea was.

So I sat with my iPad in front of me recalling my activities over the last few weeks. No lightbulb moment came to me. The only blog idea I have right now is to “write it down”.

It’s not like I have a bad memory, it’s just that I have had so many other thoughts and experiences that have taken place since I first thought of that killer post idea. By now the memory of that idea has been crowded out. 

I’ve done the same thing with login passwords. I have had to come up with a password for something I’ve registered for, but instead of writing that password down on my list, I just tried to remember it for a while … or I wrote the pass code on a scrap piece of paper so I could enter it in my list later. 

But later becomes days, maybe weeks, and I’ve either forgotten where that scrap of paper was or it got thrown out after a while. 

I’d like to tell a story of a spectacular idea I had and how I forgot all about it. If I had remembered it, I would be busy typing about it right now instead of rambling on about not writing down my ideas.

Writing ideas down is not laborious. I have a notes app on my phone that’s always in my pocket. I could easily text a line or two about an idea and it’s preserved.

But doing that would require me to feel at risk of losing my idea in the sea of other thoughts that flood my brain each day.

Instead, I think my thought is so shiny and bright that I will never forget it.

Which reminds me of when I was a kid. In the spring I would float a twig down the river that formed in the ditch on the way home from school. I had no trouble knowing which twig I had put into the flow … until it went into a culvert and I would wait for it to come out the other end. 

Sometimes I would wait and wait and then give up waiting, not really remembering what it looked like or presuming it got stuck inside the culvert and never came out.

At any rate, the twig was gone just like my idea.

Here’s the thing: There are times when you have an experience that could only be from the hand of God. Write it down because, in time, if you don’t, you won’t remember what God has done for you. Then you won’t be able to reflect on it and continue to benefit from His work.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you wish most that you had written down? Leave your comments and questions below.

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