For more than me

How joyful are those who fear the Lord
    and delight in obeying his commands.
Their children will be successful everywhere;
    an entire generation of godly people will be blessed.
Psalm 112:1-2

There is an old expression that says the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Never as evident than in the tight rolled acid washed jeans of every teenage girl at the high school my son attends.  Only to be neatly accessorized by flannel shirts.  And do you even know one song by Nirvana?

I survive flashbacks of Boyz II Men on cd with Martha  Francis Gerbeau t-shirts.  Now looking back I wish I had those tattered jeans to resale for 4 times their original cost as vintage.

Every generation has a signature something and the next steals and modifies into their own.  There is a passing down of culture many times most visibly evident in style and culture.  Tacky clothes and bad haircuts is not all we seem to hand down.  Many times what we pass we are actually passing forward.

The psalmist penned the acrostic poem we know as Psalm 112 unpacking how one generation is the benefactor of the previous.

Their children will be successful everywhere;
   an entire generation of godly people will be blessed.

I think every faith filled parent has prayed a prayer for this to be reality. “God make my kids a success.”  And I believe God hears that prayer. The writer does not tell us the prayers of parents blessed an entire godly generation.  Instead it is not simply the knocking on heavens doors that creates a godly inheritance for the following generation it is their joyful obedience to the commands of the Lord.

Lay hands on your kids and pray, yes.
Encourage them in the Lord, yes.
Teach them the word of the Lord.
All are good and important.

But like table manners, rooting for the home team and the proper way to cut a steak, it is more caught than taught.  Mom and Dad, your joyful obedience to the word of the Lord is just as powerful a tool at creating the success of your kids as anything else.  How we walk in faith not fear will empower them to take steps of their own.  Our prayers that ring off the walls of heaven heard by their ears will set them up for success.  Our improbable dependence on God in impossible situations is the catalyst to an entire godly generation being blessed.

Today, my choice of obedience is not simply a personal choice affecting my faith walk with Jesus, but it is marking boundary lines for the lineage of life coming after me.

If obedience sets a pathway of success, then you can be certain the opposite is true.  A life filled with disobedience and sin will create traps for those that carry your DNA.  The bible on numerous occasions speaks specifically of not just the blessings but curses carried through generations.

Obedience does not guarantee their success.   Much the same as sin does not promise them a life of punishment.  This we can be certain of, we as parents, in our life, choices, decisions and commitments to Jesus are as much affecting their futures as we are our own.

May my three loves find success and be blessed because I was joyfully obedient to the all the Lord commanded me.