Grandchildren

Monday, January 11, 2016

Day 11, Step 4: Grandchildren

They’ll rebuild the old ruins,    raise a new city out of the wreckage.
They’ll start over on the ruined cities,    take the rubble left behind and make it new. (Isaiah 61:3-4 MSG)

Lofty, strong and magnificent, distinguished for uprightness, justice and right standing with God. The planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. (AMP)

In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. (Galatians 3:28 MSG)

You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance. (Galatians 4:6-7 MSG)

On a news channel reporting on the international summit on climate change, I heard someone say something to this effect: 

“We are the first generation to recognize the significance of global climate change. We are the last generation able to do something about it.”

He was young enough to be our grandchild.

In these readings, God set the groundwork many generations ago. Isaiah the prophet had a wife, and since the Scripture does not say otherwise, I suspect he had children and grandchildren. God told us over and over from the time of Isaiah, a prophet of Judah in the 8^th century BC, and I know biblically long before that, clear back to Noah and even Adam, we would keep leaving a mess for our children and grandchildren to clean up.

However, we are always asked if we left them the tools, the inheritance they need to do the job their generation must do?

Paul, the apostle, tells us over and over God has no grandchildren. Each generation we stand only one generation from the extinction of Christianity. Do we live a life that will call our children and grandchildren to believe?

Have we taught them love is unconditional, so they will recognize it in Jesus, and give it to others? Have we apologized, so they know, we know, we too, are not perfect? However, we know perfection as have those who went before us? 

Have we called them who they are:

·        

                                                                                      ELAN: strong oak, great light, the essence of life

     

                                                     GEORGE: guardian of the soil

      DAVIS: sons of David the King,

·         
       

                                                                            MEREDITH: protector of the sea,

·                                                                                  ANN: grace, love, 

·        
         All, home grown and collected:  sons and daughters of the God of creation and salvation?

Have we taught them everything they need to know about staying connected to us, to their parents, their siblings, their cousins, because that is where they can always draw strength to live and to do?

Do we make it possible for them to see us caring for elderly parents, so they will know how to care for theirs when the time comes? Do they see us supporting their parents, so they can learn how to help their children? Do they see us loving, caring and serving?

No answers, just questions. Have we prepared them to be a generation that recognizes the needs of creation and the created? Have we prepared them to be the ones who will do something to preserve and defend?

Baby step four:

• ·        Live and love where our grandchildren can see the good
•       Tell our grandchildren stories 
•       Invite our grandchildren to be a part of a bigger story.

What do your grandchildren need to know? What have you taught them? Tell us because our grandchildren need to know, too.

Living Relationally

Fri Jan 4

Psalms am: 85, 87 pm: 89:1-29

Exod 3:1-12

Heb 11:23-31

John 14:6-14

From the beginning, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are relational. God’s requirement for reinstatement of His favor is recognition of His life-giving, harmonious relationship. He shows us the meaning of relationship through His attributes: steadfast love, faithfulness, righteousness and peace.

God speaks peace and salvation. The result is justification through Christ and sanctification through the Holy Spirit. Christ redeems from the ultimate outcome of sin. Through the Holy Spirit, God renews the image of Himself in those whom He created.

God calls the faithful to turn aside, take off their sandals, to stand on holy ground. God is profoundly relational and desires a dynamic relationship with each of us. God interacts not to intimidate, but to prepare.

Faith requires action on our part. Believing is necessary, but from faith must come action. Even Jesus’s words and works were ultimately the Father’s, and after Jesus’s departure, He continues to do His work through His disciples when we call on Him to do so..

I am standing in line for my miracle. I watch for burning bushes. I keep my sandals loosely fastened. I walk slowly, too slowly most days. For me, it must be enough.

I am as I am. God’s requirement for restoration has nothing to do with my body or even with my pain. It has to do with my desire to learn and believe. It has to do with my willingness to accept and trust in HIS steadfast love, faithfulness, righteousness, and peace.

God is profoundly relational. He deserves vital relationships with His people. A dynamic relationship does not require running or jumping or leaping. Yesterday it had to do with making the most-purple one-piece pajamas I have ever made. Not because of the hospital socks on the bottom of the footies. Not because of the 14” white zipper hidden inside a placket so we could use what we had.

No, it was an intensely relational time. A day spent with Meredith helping me pin the seams when she was not playing with the cat, or helping Papa make pie crusts, or all the other things that can distract a six-year-old.

A day spent with a daughter who worries if my feet have been down too long. Who does not look at the pattern instructions, not because she could not understand them, but because she knows I will not follow them and she does not like there to be any tension between us.

A day with a husband who feels free to learn to do all the things I used to do. Who is willing to figure out how to make a pie crust. Who sends a six-year-old agent to keep us posted, so we would know the pie was created, cooked, cooled and ready to slice.

A day spent with the people in whom I see true love, faithfulness, righteousness and peace. Something tells me I just may have felt God’s favor.

I heard Him speak a miracle through the hugs and kisses of a little purple clad  body. I saw Him speak a miracle through the extra hands and feet of a daughter. An engineer who chose not to be distracted by reading the directions I was not following. A daughter who made sure she equipped me to finish purple pajamas to be worn to bed last night. I tasted Him speak a miracle in a warm piece of home-made cherry pie.

I think that is the truest miracle. If there were no pain, if I could go in circles around everyone in the house as I used to, I would not be able to understand the importance of my relationship to the God who equips me to live relationally.