I wonder what Isaac's wife Rebekah thought when God told her, "two nations are in your womb..."? I read that yesterday with curiosity, thinking that she must have been blown away. Two nations - implication being that thousands, millions of people would be her descendants. It was a sobering thought to me that when I look at my children, not only am I looking at three beautiful God-given energy-filled kids... I am looking at my grandchildren, great-grandchildren and possibly many more descendants on down the line if God chooses to bless them with the gift of children.
Jacob and Esau had their 'scuffles', and certainly so have their descendants - two nations worth of scuffles. Yesterday, my boys got into a fight over a hockey play out in the driveway. For some reason, I didn't see my youngest son as having the worst injury... or my oldest as being the aggressor. What I saw was two scenarios, well into the future: my descendants, two families, two people groups - who either can't get along, fighting, bickering, dishonoring the Lord OR who have learned the art of unity and harmony and working out issues and disagreements because of the Biblical principles they were raised on. And I wondered... possibly the same thing as Rebekah... am I up to the task of instilling those values into my children that will benefit mankind... or will I have failed? It's pretty sobering to know that hundreds, maybe thousands of people down the family line will be affected by what I did or didn't do.
God grant us all the grace to know how to do parenting right. And grant that our children, grandchildren and those after them would grow in grace in spite of their father's and forefather's weaknesses and inabilities. Let it be so...
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