Leaving Things Behind

What are your thoughts on inheritances? Pretty cool to get one, huh? But how diligent are we in providing one? Proverbs 13:22 says, A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. What would it take for you to leave an inheritance sizeable enough for your grandchildren? I'm having trouble just making ends meet now! you might argue. I get it, believe me I do, and I'm going to be straight with you, I'm not thoroughly convinced this verse is talking about material goods. I'm also not thoroughly convinced it isn't.

Matthew Henry, in his commentary on Proverbs 13:22 says The servant of God who is not anxious about riches, takes the best method of providing for his children. It seems to me that MH has taken the path of "spiritual inheritance." In other words, he's talking about the servant of God who, unlike the rich young ruler of Luke 18, is willing to give his all, including all his worldly goods in the service of Jesus Christ. If our greatest desire, if all of our endeavors are centered around bringing glory to Jesus Christ, we have given our children and our children's children the best inheritance we could possibly give them.

How so? The other afternoon, I was sitting with a friend. We were right in the middle of a conversation when her phone dinged. A text. It was her daughter. She had just boarded her flight. Cool. Love you. See you soon! Those might have been some of my responses had it been one of my children. Nope, this mama sends back half a dozen emojis and lets her daughter know she's praying for her. (She didn't take a minute, bow her head, make a big deal of it --but I know this mama's heart: as we talked, she was praying for her girl.) I say all of this because, just after she'd hit SEND, she explained her daughter counts on knowing her mother is praying for her. That is an inheritance right there! Now, imagine that same daughter, years from now, with a daughter of her own. Maybe her daughter says she's nervous about her first day at school, or her dance recital, or her first flight. What do you think her mama's gonna do? She's gonna let her know she's praying for her. And where did she get that idea from? Her inheritance. The things we prioritize serve as living lessons for generations to come. Our heart's desire is the legacy we leave.

Now, I said I wasn't thoroughly convinced "inheritance" in this verse wasn't about material goods either. That's because I've seen just how much that can matter. The parent who handles money irresponsibly, who recklessly leaves their children with nothing but debt and messy finances --well, I think I've indicated here what I think: they are irresponsible and reckless. We are to be good stewards of all God gives us. The person who takes extravagant trips or buys unnecessary things on credit with no means or desire to pay for them is not only a bad financial steward, but it a bad steward with regard to relationships. They are defrauding the credit card company --not something that goes on too long before Chase Manhattan notices --but they are damaging their relationship with their children, the ones who are left to clean up the mess should something happen to dear old mom or dad. And what sort of example are they setting? You can teach a child addition and subtraction all day long, but if you unnecessarily live on credit your whole life, you sabotage the application of basic math and you create a culture of debt they will most likely pass on to their children.

I'm not looking to be unrealistic here but take a minute and look at your budget. Where can you start squirreling away five dollars a week for your children or grandchildren? Look around your house. How much unnecessary junk did you buy in the past ten months? Are there items you could sell? Look at your schedule. Do you have time for a part-time job? Do you already have a little money saved --maybe for a rainy day --that you can invest and grow for your grandchildren? A rental property? Or you could take in a boarder? Snatch a few of the neighbor's dogs to go with you on your daily walk and make some money doing that. Ask your neighbors first, please. Get creative! You'll be leaving a financial inheritance as well as an inheritance of stewardship and industry. Don't ever think it's too late to start or you've got too little to make a difference. An inheritance, even a financial one, is about the things we prioritize and the legacy we leave behind.

Whether you are a praying mama, a serving dad, a dog-walking grandma, or a penny-pinching pop-pop, whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance (Col. 3:23-24) and for your children's children, you will be providing one.

Water on Wednesday

Can you find the goodness of God in the troubles of this world? Do you? This devotion from October 5 published in Streams in the Desert reminds us of all we are losing when we only look at the loss.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After a while, the stream dried up because there had been no rain in the land. (1 Kings 17:7)

The education of our faith is incomplete if we have not learned that there is a providence of loss, a ministry of failing and of fading things, a gift of emptiness. The material insecurities of life make for its spiritual establishment. The dwindling stream by which Elijah sat and mused is a true picture of the life of each of us. “It came to pass … that the brook dried up”—that is the history of our yesterday, and a prophecy of our morrows.

In some way or other we will have to learn the difference between trusting in the gift and trusting in the Giver. The gift may be good for a while, but the Giver is the Eternal Love.

Cherith was a difficult problem to Elijah until he got to Zarephath, and then it was all as clear as daylight. God’s hard words are never His last words. The woe and the waste and the tears of life belong to the interlude and not to the finale.

Had Elijah been led straight to Zarephath he would have missed something that helped to make him a wiser prophet and a better man. He lived by faith at Cherith. And whensoever in your life and mine some spring of earthly and outward resource has dried up, it has been that we might learn that our hope and help are in God who made Heaven and earth.

—F. B. Meyer

In Our Row

In our row there is a woman whose husband left her for a man.

In our row there is a young woman who has had multiple abortions and is burdened by all it will take to keep the child she now carries.

In our row is a man who served a very lengthy sentence for armed robbery.

In our row is a woman who spent most of her life unable to read.

In our row is a man who spent most of his life on drugs.

In our row is a young boy who was abandoned by his parents.

In our row is a young girl who bears the scars of self-harm.

In our row is an old man surrounded by his children who once refused to speak to him.

In our row is story after story of redemption. 

When we sat in this row for the first time, we were not as you see us now. 

When we sat in this row for the first time, we were broken and messy and as sheep without a shepherd.

When we sat in this row for the first time, we wept and shook and kept to ourselves.

When we sat in this row for the first time, we just wanted the pain to stop.

When we sat in this row for the first time, we knew we could not go on living as we had.

When we sat in this row for the first time, what is now our past was then our present.

But week after week, within this row we began to see. 

We encountered the One who is able to turn lives upside down, to make a mess a message and a test a testimony. 

We encountered the One who had a plan for us all along, who longed to have us share in it, who longed to have us draw close that we might hear Him whisper. 

We encountered the One who cast out our sins, who clothed us in His righteousness and left us sitting in our right minds, renewed and His.

We encountered the One who commands us to be holy as He is holy.

We encountered the One who gives us His Holy Spirit to guide us and correct us in following after His example.

We encountered the One who will never leave us or turn His back on us in this undertaking.

We encountered the One who is faithful to change us according to the work He began in us the first time we surrendered ourselves to Him, in our row.