Let me preface this one by
pointing out that this is not what I do… it is what I see… what I wish I could
remember during the day when all is craziness … what could make all the
difference if I could but grasp its reality and let it work in my life.
Two years ago I went to an
OCEAN conference in Portland, OR where one of the guest speakers was a
gentleman named Voddie Baucham. His
keynote address was “Teaching Your Children with Your Grandchildren in
Mind”. For some reason, that phrase
stuck to my mental wall like a banner, even though I didn’t really understand
what it meant. Here I am fumbling
through my days with my children, desperately hoping to get them to adulthood
without killing either them or myself in the process. Hoping that they will somehow find my savior
in spite of my mistakes and failures.
Praying that God will have mercy on me and show them His grace. I despair at times of teaching my
children…and you want me to think about my grandchildren? Lord, have mercy!
Nevertheless, the phrase stays
with me; and through this journey we are on, I am beginning to catch a glimpse
of what Rev. Baucham meant. (For those who don’t know, we have taken my
husband’s business on the road.) In the
small town of Orofino, ID, I met an absolutely lovely woman who embodies the
kind of woman I have always wanted to be: a Titus 2 woman from whom I would
have loved to learn. Understand that I
met her only for a day, and never met her children or grandchildren. From this gracious, godly woman, I gathered
that her children were serving the Lord.
Then I heard it. The grief in her
voice as she spoke of her beloved grandchildren…who were not saved.
In the even smaller town of
Stites, ID, a week or two later, I heard it again. The pastor of a church we visited, speaking
of his children, who were, from what I understood, Christian, and of his
granddaughter, who was not. There was
the grief again. These lovely, godly
people who had raised their children to serve the Lord were now watching their
grandchildren embrace the world, despising the God of their fathers – and
mothers.
Teaching your children with
your grandchildren in mind. What does
that mean? How do you make that
happen? How can I teach my children
without losing my grandchildren? I am
only responsible for my children, aren’t I?
How can I possibly be responsible for my grandchildren? A verse comes to my mind.
Genesis 18:19
King
James Version (KJV)
19 For I
know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and
they shall keep the way of the Lord,
to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may
bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.
God chose Abraham because he
taught not only his children, but also those who would come after him to keep
the way of the Lord. God didn’t just
call Abraham. He called the generations
that came after him. Could it be that
when God called me, He also called my
family, in all its
generations? How do I fulfill that call? If these good, solid
Christian people could not affect their generations beyond their children, how
can I? What went wrong? Is it just that the world’s pull is so much stronger
this generation than the last?
I can’t know that, I do not
know these people. Yet their grief pulls
at my heart, and I feel I need an answer…before their grief becomes my own.
Teaching your children with
your grandchildren in mind. What are we
missing? If I had to guess, I might say that, while the
parents had a solid relationship with God, the children only caught the forms
without the reality, and thus had nothing solid to pass to their children. Maybe.
Maybe not. I do know dear friends
who have served the Lord faithfully yet have children that see only the
form…the religion… Children who, if they did stay in church, it was only for the social life. I can’t know where their grandchildren will
be in 15 years. It is not my
responsibility to know. But if it is so
difficult to pass one’s faith on to one’s own children, how can one possibly
reach one’s grandchildren? The salvation
of my generation, the children raised in the same manner as I, seems very arbitrary… most of us believing in
God, but many embracing the world more than the Bible. Few display the faithfulness of their
parents, and less are passing such things on to their children. What makes the difference? I don’t know.
What do I know? I know that I was certainly not raised with
grandchildren in mind. No, the world was
supposed to end and the Great Tribulation be finished long before I could have
children. I was taught very little about
being a wife or raising children…I was supposed to be with Christ before that
could happen. Obviously, things haven’t
quite worked out that way. As I look
back, I realize that I was not taught much at all about serving God in the home. That job was left up to the church. We were in church at least 3, sometimes 7
days a week; we attended the church school; we were saturated in the
“Christian” way of life. I loved
it. My brother (and many others), said,
“This isn’t life,” and walked away…to try and find life.
Now, here I am. Trained to let the church train my
children…yet without a church. What I
learned about God through osmosis, my children are not learning. While we go visiting different churches on
Sundays, it simply does not have the same impact. I was not taught to teach my own children.
While I pray that, one day, we
will again have a church family, the burden for teaching my children about God
and His Word now rests squarely on my shoulders. Where, coincidentally, it actually belongs.
(By “my”, I mean myself and my husband… we are, after all, supposed to be
one.) I do not want my father to lose
his grandchildren. Nor do I want to lose
my own. I do not want my children to be
sitting in my seat, saying, “How can I possibly teach my children about
God?” I want to teach my children, so that
they will know how to teach their children.
How do I do that?
I start by taking a good hard
look at what I am teaching them now. My
children see me at my tasks. They do not
see when I pray at my tasks. My children
hear the decisions I make. They do not
see the scriptures in my heart that cause me to make those decisions. My children see my failures…they see me blow
up and go hide in my room with my m&m's. They do not
see me turn to my Heavenly Father for help.
I pray silently, because
somehow I was taught that praying out loud was religious, and being religious
was a synonym for being a hypocrite…praying aloud to be seen by men.
Matthew
15:8
King
James Version (KJV)
8 This
people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips;
but their heart is far from me.
I do not want to be one of
those, so I pray silently. My children
do not hear, nor know of my prayers. Why
would they pray at their own tasks?
As a child, I went to a church
school where we memorized scripture after scripture. I loved the Word of God and refreshed my
memory of those verses again and again.
Now, as a busy mother, those precious words are often with me and effect
in some manner or other nearly every thing that I do. My children do not know those
scriptures. They rarely hear me quote
them…nor do they see me read my Bible, as I rarely have time. Those memorized scriptures are the Bible I
read on many days. I need to be speaking
them out loud when I think of them, letting my children know, letting them hear
the difference that God's Word makes. And I
must, I must be more faithful at teaching them to memorize scriptures
so that they will have them hidden in their own hearts when the time comes to
make decisions. They need to hear me
speak aloud to them, so that they will find it normal to speak aloud to their
own children. Let me teach them the
scriptures, so that they will teach their children the scriptures.
When I was young, I believed
that my Saviour loved me, and I went to Him for everything. Now, I try to do it all in my own strength,
and I fail, and I hide my failures in m&m’s and computer games, sure that
the Lord cannot love me with the horrible bad spirit I feel welling up inside
me, too ashamed to even cry out to Him for help. What is this teaching my children?
This cannot be. Not if
I want grandchildren who are serving the Lord. What am I to do? I have forgotten the Lord who sustained me
when I was young. I serve instead a God
who is angry and unforgiving… because I am angry… and tired… and lost. How do I get back to that girl who rested in
her Father’s love?
Ecclesiastes
12:1
King
James Version (KJV)
12 Remember
now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the
years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;
I have seen some evil days, and
years that I do not wish to remember. It
is time to remember my Creator from the days of my youth. The God who was my friend and constant
companion… before I became too busy to look to Him. It is time to stop running. Instead of hiding away when the frustrations
become unbearable, could I not drop to my knees and cry out to my Jesus for
help? If I won’t do it for myself, can I not do it for
my children? And for my
grandchildren? Instead of teaching my
children that life is impossible, perhaps I could teach my children that my
strength is not enough, but my Lord is able.
2
Corinthians 12:9
King
James Version (KJV)
9 And
he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made
perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Teaching my children with my
grandchildren in mind. Not just teaching
my children the three R’s and some Bible stories, and that it’s good to
fellowship with other Christians now and again, but also teaching them how to
teach their own children when the time comes.
I was taught salvation was
individual. And it is. I was taught that I could not pass on my
salvation to my children. That is also
true. Yet, if you look through the Old
Testament, it is clear that God not only calls individuals, He calls whole
families. How much impact can you have
for God as an individual vs. how much impact you could have if you stood for
God as a family instead? Individualism
is an American construct that we value quite highly. However, I think it would please the Lord if
more of us could stand boldly before him and state, as Joshua did,
Joshua
24:15
King
James Version (KJV)
15 And
if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord,
choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers
served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites,
in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord.
We surely do live in a land
full of Amorites, but we do not have to give up and feed them our
children. Let us bring God into our
house in such a way that our whole household serves the Lord; that salvation
may come not just to us, but to our children and our children’s children. That the glory of the Lord may sooner come to
fill all the earth (Numbers 14:21), and that our families may be a part of it …
from generation to generation.
Genesis 17:7
King
James Version (KJV)
7 And I
will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their
generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed
after thee.
Oh, Lord, let us catch a vision
of a continuing seed… that we are not selfish to keep our salvation to
ourselves, but we purpose in our hearts to let His covenant be established not
just with us, but also with our seed after us.
This will not happen by accident.
We must
Teach our children with our
grandchildren in mind.
