Your Children will Ask You...

Children have a lot of questions these days.   In these times that are so different than anything they have experienced, they have so many questions.   In listening to the book of Joshua this week, the phrase “Your children will ask you” popped up and grabbed my attention.

It’s always a bit of a relief when reading (or listening) through the Bible in a year to arrive at the end of the Pentateuch and arrive in Joshua.   Leviticus - Deuteronomy are often laborious and sometimes troubling.

But Joshua starts right out with encouragement to be strong and courageous!  His view of God and the world is hopeful, positive, and dare I say “solution focused.”

Check out these words from Chapter 5-7

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel. 5 He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. 6 We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”

What a great idea!   Building memorials — whether they are photographs or actual structures — reminds us of the fact that God got us through whatever we were dealings with at the time.  

So my question is — in the future, when our children, or grandchildren, or great grandchildren ask us “What do these pictures mean?” I hope that we will be able to look back and tell them about the pandemic.  I hope that we will be able to explain to them how hard it was — how strange it was — maybe even how stupid people were — but also that God brought us through.

What will you say when you are asked ten years from now “what did that mean."

One of my favorite songs that Dave Frett reminded me of the other day speaks to the issue of being able to pass on our faithfulness to those we love.