Photo Credit: Bethany Walter Photography
After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel. Judges 2:10
I heard a speaker recently who said he never knew his family history. He knew his parents’ names but he didn’t know his grandparents names or their family history. It distressed him so much that he intentionally recorded his story –or rather God’s story in his life—so his children would know what God had done for him and through him. He wanted his children to know their family history and the faithfulness of a loving God.
In Exodus, after the Israelites were rescued by God from slavery in Egypt, they headed to the Promised Land—the place God set aside for them. A place flowing with milk and honey. Many disobedient acts left them wandering the wilderness for 40 years but in their dry, dusty years of searching, God gave them the Ten Commandments. Once Moses read them to the people, he concluded with the greatest commandment—to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul. He told them these words should be on their hearts and they should teach them diligently to their children and talk of them when they sit in their homes and when they walk by the way, when they lie down and when they rise up. They were to bind them as a sign on their hands and forehead. They were to write them on the doorposts of their house and on their gates.
They were to do this to remember all of the miracles –the rescue from slavery, the parting of the Red Sea, the water from a rock, bitter waters turned sweet, manna from heaven, and so much more. They were to tell these incredibly amazing stories of God’s deliverance and His faithfulness to their families –to pass these stories down through the generations, building a nation who loved God with all of their hearts, souls, and minds.
But then…just a few books later in Judges, a few generations later—they forgot. The first generation of Israelites failed to trust God to give them the Promised Land and they died in the wilderness. The second one failed to complete the task of conquering the land, and they died defeated. The third generation did not even remember the mighty things God had done for Israel.
Somewhere along the way, the Israelites stopped teaching the words of the Lord to their children. They stopped talking of them in their homes when they were sitting, walking, lying down, or rising up. They stopped using a physical tangible reminder of God and they stopped writing them in their homes and on their gates.
Their godly legacy disappeared.
What kind of legacy are you leaving your kids? Will they know your family history traced back to the first man? Or will they just know a name written on a family tree in a family Bible? Will they know what God’s done in your life and what He has rescued you from?
Make a point today to stop rushing around to all your activities and start loving the Lord God with all your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind. Write these words on your heart and teach them diligently to your children all the time –when you’re at home or away, in the car or on the move, at the dinner table or by the bedside. Make time today to leave a godly legacy for your family.
Your family is worth leaving a legacy for and so is God.