Are you leaving a spiritual heritage for your children and grandchildren and others who come after you?

Grandparents can help children feel secure – help them know that they are loved even when they make mistakes. Children, young and old, love it when grandparents tell them stories. But what kind of stories are we telling?

There is some benefit in retelling other people’s stories, but I doubt that there is much spiritual benefit in the sticky sweet treacle from the Victorian era. Telling how we did everything just like Mom and Dad taught us is not apt to be helpful, nor is it apt to be very honest. What younger people need to hear about are those times when we messed up, got deep into trouble and the way looked hopeless. If we can tell those stories and tell how God was there to lead us out when we stopped struggling and trying to fix things our own way, that will be helpful to younger people; because they surely will find themselves in those same kind of struggles.

That can be embarrassing, it will often be painful, but young people will learn more when we ae honest about our faults and how God helped us overcome them, than if we give the impression that we never encountered troubled seas in our life. Our children and grandchildren are much like us and they will certainly face troubled waters many times in their lives. Let them know that God will surely lead them out if they call on Him.

That’s one of the reasons we have the Old Testament. Let’s resist the temptation to criticize those flawed characters that we read about. Yes, they messed up, time after time after time. Do we really think we are better than them? That is a dangerous fallacy. We’re the same kind of people. No one is writing a book about us, but our children and grandchildren should know that we are real people with real flaws who have made real mistakes. If we can talk about those mistakes in a way that honours God, we are doing a service to all who come after us.

“And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand” (Deuteronomy 6:20-21).
“Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (Isaiah 38:17).