Yesterday I finished reading the Book of Judges. It had been a long while since I read through it so there was quite a bit that struck me. If you've never had the opportunity to go through it, here's the main gist: After Joshua, there was no appointed leader of Israel so the people started to fall away from the Lord. They would end up in idolatry and captivity and then cry out to God so then God would raise up a leader, or judge, for the people that would help turn their hearts back to God and also bring them out of bondage. After the appointed judge died, the people of Israel would go through the whole song and dance again.
What struck me most about the book was the many times it said that the people had no king and so they did what was right in their own eyes and that the new generation did not know the God of their fathers. For me that did not make any sense. Weren't the people of Israel teaching their kids about their God? How do you go through a generation and then suddenly God dies off with the last family member of that generation?
All this to say that it made me really value the importance of having a household of faith and making that the legacy that I want to pass on to my children. Granted, kids are a bit of a ways off in my future but nonetheless it is something to ponder and give priority to. My family has been saved for the past 5 generations. God has been so gracious and faithful to us that we can even be able to say that but He's also put it in the hearts of my great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents to raise their children with the knowledge and understanding of God. It is my prayer that none of us would let our faith in the Lord die with our mortal bodies but that our children and children's children would continue to hold fast to the Lord.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. ~ Proverbs 22:6
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