Five Generations
I have been blessed to be a part of five generations in this life – my grandparents, my parents, my generation, my children, and my grandchildren. It is such a joy to sit with our children and grandchildren now and talk about things our parents did, or occasionally, something our grandparents did. Neither of our children got to know any of my grandparents, so any stories about them don’t seem as interesting. However, they seem very interested in our parents – their great-grandparents.
We’ve just spent a few days with our children and four of our grandchildren just enjoying some time together talking, laughing, teasing, joking, singing, eating, and sometimes telling stories from the past. There have been serious talks and funny talks – reminders of things we have done in the past together.
They seem to like hearing what it was like when we were their age. Now, granted, they often think it was before any modern conveniences were created – things like indoor plumbing, air conditioning, telephones, dishwashers, and other things we take for granted today. When we tell them that we didn’t have air conditioning or a television when we were small, they are appalled. They ask, “How did you stand it?”
After the ones from Tennessee left yesterday to go to their home, I was thinking about something that each generation had in common. We have all had it and it is the most important possession any of us could have. Every generation has been believers in God. Not every member of those in the past has been faithful to the Lord’s church, but all of them were believers in the one true God, and most of them were members of the Lord’s church.
Do we really grasp the importance of instilling that belief in God in our children and grandchildren? I was reminded of a verse that is as applicable today as it was thousands of years ago: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut. 6:4-9).
Parents and grandparents, it is a simple formula:
- Love God with everything you’ve got.
- Diligently teach God’s word to your children at every opportunity.
- Live so God’s word is before them all of the time.
If you don’t have a legacy of that in your family, begin today. Make a determination that you will be the first in a long line of generations who live every day believing in and following the one true God.
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AUTHOR: Donna Faughn
