Daily Lesson for February 10, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 78 verses 2 through 4 and 2 Timothy 1 verses 5 and 6:

Psalm 78
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.

1 Timothy 1
 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. 6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you.

Of all that we might leave to our children, the greatest thing we can pass on to the next generation is the story of our faith.

This past weekend a man named Len Sweet led our church in a retreat (he called it an "advance") at which he talked about the central place where faith is passed down from one generation to the next: at the table.  Len said we have got to bring back the table into our homes and lives as a place of fellowship, connection, and telling the story. In a world that is doing its best to pull one generation from another and teach our kids to value whatever is new and hot over whatever is old and not, the table is a radically counter-cultural place of resistance and faith keeping.

There are so many other stories being told to our children -- stories like "buy this car", "drink this drink", "wear these jeans", "make sure they're this size", we have got to take the time and make the place to tell them our story.

Today's psalm says we are not to hide the story from our children. What does that mean?  To me it means being intentional about reading and telling them Bible stories, it means making Sunday School and worship a priority for the family, and it means doing my very best to not only tell the story, but live it.

Do you know who the best youth minister our children could ever have is?  It's us; when we're telling the story with our mouths and our lives, it's definitely us.