If anything is excellent or praiseworthy...

A new devotional from our GEMS training manager, Lenae Bulthuis:

WHATEVER IS EXCELLENT & PRAISEWORTHY

We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done.

Psalm 78:4

A friend of mine will occasionally send an email saying it’s time for a Pow-Wow. We then take turns sharing a pow—one low point of our day and a wow—a high point of our day. It’s a conversation starter that I now regularly use with my children and the young women I mentor. It opens the door to what’s going on in their heads and hearts and gives opportunity to praise God in our heartaches and our joys.

God gives repeated commands in His Word to tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done. So the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children (Psalm 78:4,6).

Before the Israelites exodus from Egypt, God gave instructions for the Passover and how it was to be commemorated for the generations to come. “And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ they were to tell them how the LORD passed over their homes, sparing their lives because of the protection of the blood of the lamb (Exodus 12).

After the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, twelve memorial stones were set up. Joshua said, “In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that what God did to the Red Sea when He dried it up, and how He did it again in the Jordan River. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God (Joshua 4).

In the book of Joel, God urges parents to pass on the lessons that He’s taught them – the Pow-Wows of their story. Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation (Joel 1:3). 

What is God doing in your life right now? Think about your pow and like Job fall to the ground in worship. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21).  Think about your wow and like the crippled beggar that was healed by Peter jump to your feet, walking and praising God (Acts 3:8). Think on God’s excellent and praiseworthy deeds, and then go tell the next generation.

Think on it: Think about what God is doing in your life right now. Now go and tell someone who is younger than you.

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.

Neil Postman

grace and peace,

Lenae