For Generations Yet Unborn

But truly we have done this out of concern, for a reason, saying, ‘In time to come your sons may say to our sons, “What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?”'— Joshua 22:24

The other day my 6-year-old was trying to count the days until his seventh birthday. I didn’t have a calendar handy, so I let him use the calendar app on my phone to count the days. Before he knew it, his little fingers had scrolled past 2024 into the year 2135 and kept right on walking. (I had no idea Google Calendar even went that far into the future!) But as I got over my surprise, I began to explain to my son how by then he’d most likely not be alive, but that his children, grandchildren, or perhaps even great-grandchildren might be.  These are heady thoughts for a 6-year-old whose main calendar interest is how many days until he will get a new Lego set. But while these thoughts might make a 6-year-old’s head swim, God has made clear to us that not only is He thinking about the generations, but that He is the God of the generations. In fact, one of the names He gives Himself makes clear that this is a key aspect of His being and relationship to us:

I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. — Exodus 3:6

It’s fascinating to me that God identifies Himself to us not just in personal terms as “your God” (Exodus 20:2, Deuteronomy 5:6), but in generational terms (Exodus 3:6). He is the God who has walked through not just the days with us, but through the decades, the centuries, even the millenia with those with whom we share strands of the same DNA.

But He also implores us to think generationally. He calls us to see our own role in the Kingdom as one of multi-generational importance, with an impact that ripples out far beyond the earthly number of our days. In Psalm 78:5-6, Asaph writes:

Our mandate to teach the commands of the Lord is for generations yet unborn. This isn’t a command simply for parents either; this is for all believers, a generational mandate to pass along our faith.

We are called not just to rehearse the commands of the Lord, but also the deeds of the Lord: those great things He has done. As it says in Psalm 78:4,

we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done. — (emphasis added)

In the Israelites’ generation it was the events detailed in Exodus: the plagues, a pillar of cloud and fire, the crossing of the Red Sea, water from the rock, manna and quail from Heaven, which are described in detail in this Psalm. But each of us also has a story to tell about God’s faithfulness to us in our own lifetime or in the lifetime of our parents or grandparents. I love to tell my kids how God miraculously healed my mom of Polio, or how He provided every penny I needed for a teen mission trip when I had faith, but no time to fundraise. Telling these stories fortifies our own faith and the faith of those who will come after us. Psalm 145:7 says,

“They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. One generation… to another.”

• When our hearts are full of the abundant goodness of God, we naturally want to pour forth that testimony to the generations to come.

I believe one very strategic way to influence the generations yet to come is through helping mothers and fathers of young ones grow in their faith and to give them a multi-generational view of their impact on the world through the faithful love and nurture of children in a Christian home. If parents see their role as a high and holy calling to shape disciples of Jesus, generations will be impacted because of it.

That’s one of the core reasons, that even as my husband and I are currently chin-deep in the business of raising and homeschooling 6 boys (ages 14 to 2), the Lord called me to write three devotional books for young mothers. Waiting in Wonder: Growing in Faith While You’re Expecting, Watching in Wonder: Growing in Faith During Your Baby’s First Year, and Walking in Wonder: a Devotional Journal for Moms of Toddlers.

All three books seek to help establish a mother in her own deep faith and lift her eyes to the high calling of raising little ones to love and serve Jesus. The impact of this calling is no small thing. Motherhood is not simply diaper-changing and car-pool shuffling. Motherhood can mean having a manifold impact on the trajectory of the generations to come. As the famous poem by William Ross Wallace says,

The hand that rocks the cradle, is the hand that rules the world.

My prayer for these books, and the mothers who record snippets of their own faith journey and prayers for their children in them is that as Psalm 102:18, says,

This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. 

It’s easy to bemoan the state of our culture; to want to bury our heads in the sand or give up. But God calls us to do something. He calls us to think often about our own generational impact. He wants us to ask Him how He is calling us to fulfill His mandate of teaching His commands and speaking forth His deeds to the next generation. Whether you are chin-deep in the throes of motherhood like me, an empty nester, single, divorced, or widowed, we all have a role to play in a story that (unless the Lord returns beforehand) will still be playing out hundreds if not thousands of years from now.

One very practical way you can impact the next generation is to pray specifically for a child, whether it’s your own, your new grandbaby, your niece or your neighbor’s. 

Wherever God is calling you to impact the generations yet unborn, know that while we may not see the ripple of the actions of our lives on the generations to come, God, who stands outside of time, sees every faithful deed and cherishes the heart set fully on Him and exalting His name.

Written for Devotionals Daily by Catherine Claire Larson, author of Walking in Wonder. 

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Your Turn

Who are you praying for? We have the power through Jesus Christ to impact our kids, grandkids, and beyond, as well as any children we pray for! ~ Devotionals Daily