“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7a NIV)
Our kids are certainly impressionable, aren’t they? When Rob and I married as teenagers and then had two littles by the time I was twenty-five, I had little to no idea how much influence we would have over these tiny people. How could I? I had barely any life experience myself! I didn’t have a good grasp on the brevity of parenting. As mom and dad, we get to shape a life, or two or more. I didn’t comprehend how my actions and inactions and attitudes and lack of sanctification would affect these little lives. So much of godliness is caught, not taught. Rob and I were just a couple kids ourselves, with boundless energy but not much patience. We certainly didn’t begin with the end in mind.
Now, almost two decades later, I look at our nearly-grown kids and I see the grace of God all over their lives. Though I wish the older Rob and Anna could have raised these two amazing people, that the time-worn version of us that could have loved them with the finish line ever in focus, it seems that God has covered our weaknesses fairly well.
Moses instructs his people about the importance of parenting with God’s word centerstage:
“Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:7b-9 NIV)
Moses reminds the original audience and the current reader: coming and going, morning and evening, talk about the Lord and His instruction. Mark the doorways of your life with His Word. I suppose this level of repetition helps our children learn, but also aids us parents in living it.
If we forget the living conditions of the still-traveling Israelites, we miss a big part of the blessing. These people were perpetually in transition. They had lived as nomads all their life thus far. Tents don’t have doorposts, so this instruction was bursting with promise. God was about to plant His people in a more permanent environment with houses and gardens in cities. But He was asking, while they were still in the wilderness, that they would decide today to impress their faith upon their children. They were about to take the Promised Land but only their commitment to His commandments would keep them there. If and when the Israelites lost sight of this instruction, they’d lose their land.
We need to do whatever is necessary to keep God’s Word in front of the next generation, lest they inherit the earth based only on our generation’s waning faithfulness. It seems what is inherited is rarely appreciated. What we work to maintain holds it’s value.
“In a day of prosperity, we are in great danger of forgetting God, our dependance on Him, our need of Him, and our obligations to Him. When the world smiles we are apt to make our court to it, and expect our happiness in it, and so we forget Him that is our only potion and rest. Agur prays against this temptation (Proverbs 30:9): Lest I be full and deny Thee.”
(Matthew Henry)
Perhaps, as a nation, we have lived in fullness too long? We don’t seem to know what to do with hardship. It feels like we are falling out of prosperity. We have enjoyed the blessing of a being a land devoted to God but maybe we’ve failed to impress His commands upon our children? Maybe we’ve forgotten His commands ourselves. If so, today is not too late to start. The thing about God’s truth is that as long as we have breath, we can turn back. Consider Moses, Samson, Peter and Paul. We can reconvene in God’s Word and maybe, just maybe, experience a miracle. We can’t change the country, but we can change our home and that’s a worthy place to start.
Lord, help us follow through on this commandment. In this season of pandemic, so the responsibility of discipleship has returned to it’s point of origin: the home. Persuade us completely and equip our hearts and minds to parent well. May we discuss Your commands as families while we are coming and going, in the morning and the evening. May we write Your Word on the doorways of our life, that in every passageway we would recall Your great grace toward us. Fascinate this new generation the way You have captivated generations past. We repent of our failures, please hear our prayer and save our people. Amen.