Accept One Another: Devotions From Time of GraceНамуна

Think Long Term--Really Long Term Children don't think much about the future--there is only the Now. The Right Now. They need their parents to teach them about deferred gratification, that slogging through math problems now will help them get a good job in 15 years . . . that keeping an orderly bedroom will build habits of mental organization . . . that steadily saving a few dollars instead of blowing them on junk food will grow them over time. Are you in love with your great-grandchildren? You may be one of those rare individuals who has lived long enough to know them. How happy your life! I on the other hand, though no spring chicken, am still some decades from great-grandchildren and may never hold one in my arms. But God wants me to think about them and love them right now. How? "He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children" (Psalm 78:5,6). Did you grasp that key point? The spiritual condition of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, human beings who haven't even been born yet, rides on how you are modeling and teaching and transmitting your faith today. As I hear the stories of my family's history, I realize that I am a believer now because of faithful Christians going back into the 1800s and even farther. You and I are important players in the spiritual condition of America in the 22nd century. Your faith and work matter!