It is curious how, in The Bible, the children of Israel are collectively referred to as “they, you, and we”, but in fact, are multiple generations of successors over eons of time. Several hundreds of years after the fact, God still addresses them: ‘I brought YOU out of Egypt.’ The ‘i-Generation’ in which you and I live might well respond,
Who, me? 'I' scarcely know where Egypt is and 'I' have never been there for 'Me' to be ‘brought out’!
When
reading of their stories, we naturally wonder why "they" didn't get it and learn the lessons. Though God seemingly expected each generation
to teach its successive generation to learn His commands and ways, each
generation necessarily had to experience God (mostly His judgments) for
itself before it would learn well; and many still refused to learn.
Like
me, do you see yourself in the mirror of their stories? We are just like them. Having a righteous set of parents will not
guarantee righteous offspring, because of the inherent "go my own
way" rebellious streak so well ingrained in human nature.
For
those of us inclined to believe in evolution, I ask, why has this
rudimentary aspect of human nature been so overwhelmingly consistent and has not evolved away, or at least diminished?!
For
those of us inclined to believe the devil’s lie that there is no hope regarding the mistakes we made in passing to our successor generation the baton of our faith in Christ, there is GOOD NEWS on at least
two fronts:
· The ink on Proverbs 22:6 dried eons
ago, and this promise from God has never changed, nor will it. “Train up a child in The Way he should go,
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” As noted in other posts, there is no promise respecting those rebellious middle years! I had
mine, and you likely had yours, too, so chill out and trust God.
· Prayers have no expiration date! Hallelujah! They may well be eternal. (Revelation 8:3-4). If you’re still breathing, you should be
still praying. God is faithful, and He
still responds to faith... activated.
