History Lessons
My family loves studying history. It becomes obvious when my now-eight-year-old boy asks for a birthday cake decorated like a Civil War battlefield.
Maybe it is sentimentality that causes us to tell more stories at special occasions. At birthdays, we always remind the children of their birth stories. Just a small amount of studying one side of our family's past, we discover that Clark shares his birthday with his great-great grandmother. We talk to them about their relatives; we tell them stories about the members of their family. We do a lot of reiminscing and storytelling. Grace and Clark soak up the stories and talk to us about them. It is important for a child to know where they came from. It is important for them to know what their family has been through, overcome, and learned. We celebrate each other, and we celebrate the lives of those who have gone on before us. Children need to be reminded often of how they are loved and treasured and how special their story is.
We believe that every person is special and that God gives us a divine gift in our unique life stories. God is working through our children's lives and experiences now to mold them into the people He wants them to be. He is working in our lives as well, and we need to be sharing that with our children. Part of our children's heritage is seeing how God has placed certain people in our lives at just the right time, and how His Providence has carried us through different and sometimes difficult life events. Our children need to hear how He has forgiven us, how He has delivered us, and how He has answered our prayers..
There is a beautiful passage in the Bible that illustrates how important it is for us to be teaching our children about the past. God's chosen people, the Israelites, were enslaved in Egypt for over four hundred years before God used Moses to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians. He led them out, parted the Red Sea for their passing, and provided for them with physical sustenance and the spiritual leadership of Moses as they waited to enter into the Promised Land. God knew that the people would need to be reminded of how God had saved them. Read with me from Deuteronomy 11:11-5, 7, 19-21.
"Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the Lord brought lasting ruin on them. It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place...
But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done.
Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth."
Every year, we read the familiar words from Mattthew and Luke of the story of Jesus' birth. Again, in the spring, we read the passages of Scripture that detail the horrific death that Jesus died on our behalf. But what about the seasons between these? What do we share with our children when our beliefs are challenged, our prayers seem unheard, and the atrocities of this life seem to be choking us? The Lord anticipated that we would need guidance through the most difficult of times as well as words to help us express our deepest joys. Beginning in Genesis, God describes how He lovingly and strategically planned even our very existence. The Old Testament is full of details that describe God rescuing His people from certain disaster and giving His people strength to overcome impossible situations. He gives us words of praise and psalms of thanksgiving. He reminds His people that there is no reason for them to fear Him but to take comfort in the fact that He will be with them. The New Testament begins by introducing us to the God who gave up His place in heaven to walk among us and ultimately gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins. Again and again, we read of historical people and events that defied human capabilities and possibilities, and we find strength in the words of those who have walked before us in faith despite some of the most turbulent and violent actions in history.
Just as we would not let our offspring pass through their childhood without reminding them of how much we love them, we cannot miss the opportunity to tell them that God loves them too. All of history has been leading up to this point, and our children have God-given roles to fulfill based on the knowledge they have of how God is working through the lives of His people. The process of sharing the truth of God and His love as demonstrated in the Bible and in the working of our lives is one part of discipling our children and training them to become followers of Jesus. We want to give our children a heritage that brings eternal rewards.
Keep telling your children stories of your past and of their ancestors. Remind them of the love that was shared and the lessons that were learned. When you share with your children the legacy of their past, include in your lesson the certainty of their place in His Story.