From Generation to Generation

I’m still perusing photos. I came across one of my parents the other day and remembered that when I was a lot younger, I thought that they already seemed so old in this photo. Then the daunting reality hit me that now I am now a lot older than they were at the time of the photo. Generations come and go. My children are part of the coming generation and I am definitely part of the going one.

For God generations have an important task. They have the awesome responsibility of preserving and passing on His promises. We see a hint of that in God’s promise to Abraham in the text above.

As a parent or grandparent, you have no greater responsibility or privilege than passing on, in a living, loving and authentic manner, the promises of God to your children and grand children. That is your foremost and most (eternal) life giving task.

Too often I have seen parents so obsessed with the present, getting money, house, job success and so on, that they have neglected eternity. Their children know how to acquire and succeed, as they have learned well from their parents, but the children have failed to grasp and live faith.The patterns of life have already been set in their children. I have seen many older parents in tears because they have come to this understanding too late.

So parents, above all else, teach, show and live faith before your children. Other things may be important, but nothing, nothing at all, is more important than this.