I was reading Psalm 106 the other week and I noticed an interesting pattern in it, a pattern it is vital to pay attention to if I/we want to continue to follow God with obedience.

The Psalm starts by declaring the goodness of God but the writer also admits his and his people’s own sinfulness in verse 6.

We have sinned, even as our ancestors did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly.

Very quickly the writer traces the sinfulness to generations before them. The main cause of that disobedience was their failure to remember God. That forgetting causes their rebellion. Verse 7 says this;

When our ancestors were in Egypt, they gave no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.

The Psalm goes on to say that God saved them and led them through the Red Sea, and the desert, delivering them from their foes. He’d redeemed them even though they had been disobedient. They saw the miracle at the Red Sea and verse 12 says;

Then they believed his promises and sang his praise.

Their believe is restored but in the next two verses (12 &13) the pattern highlighted earlier repeats again.

But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold. In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test.

This forgetting leads them into even more disobedience.

16 In the camp they grew envious of Moses and of Aaron, who was consecrated to the LORD.

19 At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped an idol cast from metal. 20 They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull, which eats grass

And just in case we have missed the source of this disobedience it is highlighted again in verse 21.

They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

The pattern is repeated another two times in the passage and we read again and again how they have disobeyed the Lord. Verse 43 sums it up.

Many times he delivered them, but they were bent on rebellion and they wasted away in their sin.

The conclusion even after all this disobedience was that His anger relented and He heard their cry when they were in trouble. Incredible mercy.

Just from looking at this Psalm we can see that the key to remaining obedient to the Lord is to remember His wonders and miracles, to dwell in His goodness. Without doing this we will become attracted to sin and forget His goodness.