For the Next Generation
On May 28, 1999, a new and tremendous responsibility came into my life. Scarlet and I now have a baby girl, Gianna Corinne. As Scarlet and I sat on the bed musing over our new little treasure, I remember audibly noting the fact that Gianna was the cleanest of ?slates.? She had just come into the world, fully a person, but nevertheless having no baggage, no regrets, no scars, dysfunction, nor hang-ups. Sure, she has a little sinful nature that soon enough will rear its ugly head, but whatever part ?nurture? will play in her life to produce the adult she will become, she?s got none of it yet. She arrived as a lump of clay ready to be molded and shaped for good, for bad, or both.
And the overwhelming part is, that?s where I come in. I?m the influencer, the shaper, the God-called potter for this sweet little ?lump,? if you will. I?m a parent, along with my wife, responsible for this little life. I?m responsible to do one thing: to raise my child in the nurture (discipline) and the admonition (instruction) of the Lord.? Eph. 6:4
And whether or not I take my job seriously as a parent can literally impact of a big piece of the next generation. In the book of Joshua we read the narrative of a godly generation who enjoyed the Promised Land. But Joshua 2:10 tells us that ?all that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.? (NASB) What a sad picture. A generation of believers who had enjoyed and experienced the goodness and greatness of the Lord, but had failed to pass the ?baton? of God?s truth to the next generation.
The Lord God had prescribed the prevention of this occurrence but the people had not heeded. His mandate is still known today among the Jews as the shema and is quite direct and clear: ?And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.? Deut 6:6-9 NASB
What will your children pass on to their children as parents? Only what they receive from you. That?s why the shema prescribes such diligence and consistency in passing on the Faith to the next generation. Without such diligence and consistency, the true knowledge of the Lord will inevitably be lost. What is left to fill the void is very costly for future generations.
The following comparison of two families illustrates this truth:
In the 1800?s two families from New York State were studied by a researcher. Max Jukes and his brother married sisters. They did not believe in Christian training. They had 1026 descendants. Three hundred of them died very young. Many others had poor health. At least 140 of them served time in the penitentiary for an average of 13 years each. 190 were public prostitutes and there were 100 drunkards in the group. Over 100 year period the Jukes descendants cost the state $1,200,000. With inflation and more liberal welfare programs today, these two brothers and their families could easily cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Contrast the miserly experienced and caused by the Jukes family with another record.
Jonathan Edwards became a Christian and married a girl of like belief. After graduating Yale in 1720 he became a preacher. From their union, he and his wife had 729 descendants. Among them were 300 preachers, 65 college professors, 13 university presidents, 60 authors, 3 congressman and a vice-president of the United States. Except for Aaron Burr, a grandson of Edwards, who married a girl of questionable character, the family did not cost the state a single dollar.¹
Consider the cost of lackadaisical, latch-key, convenience-oriented parenting. The intense instruction going on in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 (Christian training) is not to be taken on by a day-care worker, a school teacher, a Sunday school teacher, much less the media. That?s not God?s plan. Have we lost the goal of the shema in our aspiration to live in bigger homes and drive nicer cars? Are our kids picking up their values from other kids, other adults, and/or Hollywood while for 30 hours or more a week they are away from both of the people God has commanded to train them with such diligence? These are hard questions for some, but the answer will affect literally millions of people yet to be born.
My prayer is that my little girl would one day read the shema in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 and be able to say, AI know what to pass on, how to pass it on, why to pass it on, because my parents passed it on to me. Not only have I read it; I?ve experienced it.? Let us undertake our task of molding and shaping in the fear of the Lord for the sake of the next generation.
? taken from Preparation for Parenting (tape series), Gary Ezzo, 1995.
