About A Christian Heritage

Deuteronomy 11:2-3a, 7, 19 – And know ye this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm, and his miracles, and his acts,

 But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did.

 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up

As Christians we are part of the family of God. Our Christian heritage begins with God’s testimonies – the divine revelation in general, the scriptures. The Bible is our collective Christian heritage.

Our individual Christian heritage also includes our personal experiences with God, which add another dimension to our spiritual growth and strengthen our faith. By sharing our own experiences with our family’s younger generations our “God Stories” add to our family’s heritage, contributing to their spiritual growth, and strengthening their faith.

For example, when our son was five or six he asked me how his dad and I met. I could’ve just told him that we took judo lessons together. Instead, I chose to tell him the “God Story”. See How I Met My Husband.

When he was thirteen he announced that he wanted his marriage to be like ours and he had decided not to date. He would trust God to bring him the right one at the right time. In the meantime, his plan was to focus on becoming the provider and spiritual leader his future wife and children were going to need.

Many aspects of his life have not turned out the way he imagined they would, but he has never regretted that decision; and I am so glad that I didn’t just tell him we took judo lessons together. Only if you’ve ever heard your own child say, “I’ve decided to trust God“ can you know just how much that meant to me. Those who were close to our family at that time know that there were other factors that influenced his decision not to date. However, it was our story and marriage example that gave him the conviction to remain firm in his decision.

A number of years ago my Pastor’s wife shared with me about their God Stories jar. A jar their family uses to collect very small trinkets that are symbolic of a story about how God worked in a special way in their lives. It’s kind of a modern day, Christian version of the Old Testament Jews piling stones in a place where God did something miraculous – like when the Israelite’s crossed the Jordan river on dry ground (Joshua 4); so that when their children asked, “What mean ye by these stones?” they would have the opportunity to tell them what God did.

My family liked the idea; so, I found a jar and collected appropriate trinkets for our most memorable experiences with God. God does amazing and miraculous things every day, but not necessarily something that we would put a trinket in the jar for. We don’t have dozens of trinkets in the jar. However, my journals contain many God Stories that are certainly worthy of passing on. I seriously doubt anyone would care to read through years of journals in search of my God Stories, if that even occurred to anyone. So, I decided to compile them in a binder, making it easier to share them and so that each generation can easily add their own stories to the collection.

When God began leading me to write this blog I was looking for confirmations of His leading. One confirmation was a casual comment by an older Christian gentleman in a totally unrelated conversation. He said that he and his wife have always relied on God to meet their needs, but their grandchildren don’t. I had to wonder if his grandchildren are aware of the times God met his and his wife’s needs. Did he ever share their God Stories with them?

God expected the Israelite’s to share with their descendants their experiences with Him as they went about their daily lives. I realize that we are no longer under the law, life is different now, and, often, so are family structures. However, that practice of each generation passing on their witness of how they have seen God act in their life is as important to the younger generations of God’s people today as it was to the descendants of His people back then.

We are frequently reminded of the importance of sharing the Gospel with a lost and dying world. There are countless resources available to help us do that. However, I don’t recall ever hearing a sermon, or a lesson, or seeing any writings on the importance of passing on to our younger generations the accounts of how God has worked in our own life.

By posting some of my family’s God Stories, my prayer is that others will be inspired to recall and in some way pass on their own stories to the younger generations in their family for their benefit and the benefit of generations to come.

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