Day 15: Generations

History tells the tale of generations, one that has influenced for the better or worse sometimes. And one thing I have come to understand more is the importance of what are we passing onto the next generation? How are we helping, hindering, creating, influencing, leading, guiding, reminding, etc…?

In Joshua 4:6 it says “In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’” Many times in Scripture, when the fathers of the faith encountered God, they would build an altar. They built these altars so they would remember - remember their encounter with God, remember the place where everything changed. They took the time to gather stones and then stack them into a large pile so they wouldn’t forget how God had met with them. They also did this so they could bring their children and grandchildren back to the place their story changed forever.

Can you envision Abraham taking a walk with his son, Issac, and coming upon a random pile of rocks Issac asks him what they were doing there? Abraham looking at his son and sharing about his encounter with God. Where Heaven collided with Earth and his life being forever changed?

I truly can only imagine it, father sharing of this time or that, son eagerly wanting to listen and growing in faith, in understanding, and endless possibilities for his own life because of the testimony of God had done in his father’s life. However, this is because the father took time to build an altar, the legacy to be passed from one generation to the next.

No one builds an altar for just himself; he builds it for generations to come back and encounter God. So, what alters are we building for the next generation to return to and encounter God? What are alters you have visited from the generation before you? Why don’t we all ask of a time, a moment, a story of when someone in your family of when Heaven collided with Earth. May we sit in awe and wonder and see what endless possibilities await us then!