Friday, November
10, 2017
O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying, for
I will speak to you in a parable. I will
teach you hidden lessons from our past—stories we have heard and known, stories
our ancestors handed down to us. We will
not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about
the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders. For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his
instructions to Israel. He commanded our
ancestors to teach them to their children, so the next generation
might know them—even the children not yet born—and they in turn will teach
their own children. So each generation
should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and
obeying his commands. Psalm 78:1-7(NLT)
This
Psalm, or maskil, a Hebrew song sung in worship, sets the stage for
proclamation of God’s ways through the retelling of humanity’s journey from
Eden to the present. Its purpose is to
instruct the congregation in God’s Word so it will be passed-down through the
generations. As the final verse unfolds
we see God’s wise challenge; this is not a rote-memory project, mechanically
reciting the words to commit to memory.
Rather it is an experience that helps the Word come alive for young (and
old) minds. This is the awakening dawn
of faith; hope gets set anew on God
in each generation.
Yesterday’s
devotion made a point about the reality of the cycle of generations. Just by looking at the changing color of the leaves
we understand that the fall announcement of winter’s coming is a perfect
metaphor for what happens in the human family.
We start off as buds, mature into healthy green leaves, turn a blaze of
colors, then…gone! The leaves’ swan song
is brilliant; they go out in a blaze of glory.
But it’s death, nonetheless.
I
have to admit that at seventy I think a lot more now than before about this cycle
and my responsibility in God’s plan to pass along the faith. (When you’re raking up 54 gazillion leaves a
day you have some time to think.)
In
some ways we are no different in the 8th decade of life than the
first; we still learn by example. The
pictures we paint for our children with our behavior are a powerful source of
understanding how life is/can be lived. The
old saying do as I say, NOT as I do
speaks true volumes when it comes to failure in communicating authentically. We cannot convince our children and
grandchildren to DO
differently than we have simply by ordering it; behavior is more caught than taught! Occasionally a child who is wise beyond her
years might reason that a command makes sense; but, that would be a child
well-beyond his years. Mostly our
children watch us, see what we do, and then proceed to make their way for good or bad based on our example. Ripples do affect the lake!
And
so the whole point of this Passing-Along-the-Faith-Psalm is to model living God’s
ways daily, so our children grasp more fully what it means to be God’s
child. We are all flawed and make
mistakes, but by the time our youthful green meets the cold snap of Fall’s
change in color, the pattern of our discipleship ought to display a grand
flourish of devotion to the will and way of God. And so much, so that the generation
immediately behind can’t help but see the loveliness of what God has built.
We
usually express the growing older
image with the metaphor of the color of our hair being snow on the roof; today I am officially changing it to: I
am in the season of going out in a blaze of glory.
I
want my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to see God’s best; I
want to offer them a memory of Godliness that’s authentic. I want them to see the change God has made in
me. I want to be part of helping the
next generation set their hope anew on the Lord Jesus.
For You
Today
No
matter how close you are to the going out part of going out
in a blaze…while you’re breathing it is not too late to begin to let God set
you on fire!
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