22 Mar Breathing Room – Day 4

Posted at 18:01h in Breathing Room, Making The Most of Now, Suffering and Trials by

Psalm 145:4 (NLT)

Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts;
    let them proclaim your power.

We long to create memories that will last so that when our kids are grown or when we go on there’s something to be remembered…not forgotten. We scroll through pictures on our smart phones, flip through pages of our photo albums & scrap books finding hundreds of memorials to vacations, birthday parties, celebrations. We pass along stories about times & events; the things our parents & grandparents told us— hoping to keep their memories *alive* so that the next generations won’t forget the things that mattered to us, to them.

God has wired us with this longing to not be forgotten. But his instruction to his people was so that HE would not be forgotten, saying, “Tell the next generation God’s mighty acts and marvelous things he has done”—not only in the Bible, but in our very own lives, “ so that the next generation, and all generations to come— would know the truth, tell the God stories, and put their trust in God” (Psalm 78:1-8).

Eugene Peterson said, “Forgetfulness is one of the great breaches in our relationship with God, for when we forget his saving ways, either in biblical history or in our personal history, the results are disastrous.” We have only to read the Old Testament to see what forgetting God did to the people of Israel.

So, when Israel crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land the Lord instructed Joshua to have the priests take stones from the river and pile them up as a memorial to Him, saying, “In the days to come when your children ask you, ‘What are these stones doing here?’ you shall tell your children…” this is where God showed up in our lives (Joshua ‪4:18-22, my emphasis)! It begs the question— Are our children even asking us about God? Do they see his activity in our lives in a way that makes them want to know him the way that we know him?

Memories fade, but LEGACY is eternal. And there is no time like NOW to start telling the eternal truths to the next generation— both your own children & your spiritual children. Tell them the great things God has done in your life! Pass along to them something that they will remember that will build their trust in God & strengthen their lives for the rest of their lives.

I love y’all!

xo P♥️

For more about The Breathing Room, click here to listen to Season 1, Episode 4 of the #LifeOnLife podcast.