I had a realization...and I had a dream.
We're finishing up our series at church about families and the last sermon was on Psalm 78 and passing along our faith to the next generation. This past spring, when I started radiation, I bought two things: a giant purse and a small Bible (I'm certain size is not an indication of priority!) The purse held things like my phone for my disastrous appointments, my journal, all my creams and lotions for the skin burn, and I wanted to add the Bible to the mix. I had a wonderful ritual of dropping off the kids and then parking the car to read one of my devotional books. The books always had references to scripture texts and I wanted to use this little Bible to supplement what I was reading, obviously. So I started marking up the Bible like I had all my other ones and casually thought about some day giving it to my daughter Abby.
Shift gears a second, but keep that thought.
We're living with a dear family, the Kenyons, right now and in order to make space for all the VanTils, Patti was going through some boxes in the basement that she had 'inherited' from her folks. Within all the boxes of clothes, fabric, books, papers, etc, etc she found a letter that her mom had sent to her that spelled out in great detail what she saw as the characteristics and strengths of each of her family members. One thing that impressed me about this was the joy that Patti felt when she found this note from her mother. Yes, the material was remarkable, but the pleasure that Patti as her daughter felt when she read these words directly from her mother about what she saw in her family's future was beautiful.
So coupling our Sunday message, this new little Bible of mine, and seeing Patti's joy at reading and realizing her mother's inward thoughts spurred me to step up my game a bit. I've become even more deliberate in writing in this little Bible and underlining texts or making references so that one day, maybe at her high school graduation, I can pass along this Bible, full of my markings and a few of my thoughts to my little girl.
The realization came in that I can pass along my faith in more ways than just 'word and deed.' So often as a parent we (or maybe just I) try to find ways to parent kids using Biblical principals - bring to mind texts to quote at the right time, use Biblical analogies for discipline - but this, for me, was a simple way to impress on my kids the importance of the Bible and how it's been used in my everyday living. A tool for giving my kids a generational perspective without all my babble - let the Word of God speak for itself rather than my weak attempt to duplicate what God has already given. I'm not doing justice, but hopefully you get the point.
The other was my bizaar dream last night. It may have been a direct result of the valium (that didn't seem to be working) I took to relieve back spasms after my re-fill by the plastics guy yesterday. BTW the second time around is NOT more comfortable than the first time of expansion. Great. Anyway... the dream is this: we (Josh, me, two 20-something guys, their friend and two other folks) are driving along in a van jawing about nothing, but I have this impression of the two 20-somethings that they are, as I would call them (forgive me for stereotyping) punk business kids. That is to say, they their 'wisdom' did not match up with life-experience but they didn't know that yet. I even remember what they looked like. One kid was dark haired and when he spoke, he jutted his bottom jaw out. The other was dirty-blonde with a spent-too-much-time-at-the-beach mussy/trendy look.
Both these guys were spouting off about stuff that didn't seem to have much backbone, but they all of a sudden, threw out the following question: What good do you see having your kids follow the Bible? Not in so many words, but essentially, what use do you see the Bible having for your children? Why use the Bible?
Within my dream I jumped in and gave my answer, but upon waking I was disappointed with my gut response. So I challenge you, reader: why the Bible? What value does it hold for you? I'm thinking along the lines of Jesus' question to the disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" Their response was a quick gut reaction of what other people thought of Jesus, but He pressed them - what about YOU? Who am I to YOU? So what about the Bible? What is it to YOU? A good guidebook full of pithy, helpful advice? Is it a history book that shows us the 'way it should be'? Or a book that shows us how screwed up the rest of history was and thank goodness God doesn't turn us to pillars of salt for looking back like Lot's wife! What is it to YOU and how is it used as a tool for the next generation?
