We've been talking so much lately about generations, what we're building, what we're preparing, and what we're handing down to the people coming behind us. And this morning, on the way to school, I realized that sometimes passing it down looks a lot simpler than we think.
Every morning my son and I drive to school together. We roll the windows down, turn the music up, and rock out, but I've started making sure that the last song playing as we pull into school is worship. I want that to be the last thing filling his ears before he walks through those doors.
The last couple of mornings I've been introducing him to the Supertones, which is what I listened to when I was his age. I remember riding the school bus with my CD player and headphones, drowning out the ugly music around me with their songs. And they weren't just good songs, they were theological. Those guys practically preached sermons through their music. Truth was being planted in me while I was just sitting there listening.
Now, all these years later, I'm turning those same songs up with my own son. I'm passing it down.
He doesn't have to experience God exactly the way I did or love everything I loved, but this was something that pointed me toward Jesus when I was his age and its now something I can place in his hands. And that connects so with today's reading too.
Solomon finishes praying, fire falls from heaven, and the glory of the Lord fills the temple. This is the kind of encounter people would talk about for generations. Yet even after the fire falls and the glory fills the room, God tells Solomon to seek His face.
That's important.
The temple mattered. The encounter mattered. The fire mattered. But none of those things were God Himself.
I have places like that too, altars I've cried at, services where God absolutely wrecked me, songs that carried me, moments in prayer that changed me. Those places mean alot to me, and I'll never forget them. But the place where I met Jesus isn't Jesus. He is.
Sometimes we become so attached to where God met us that we spend our lives trying to recreate the same atmosphere, the same worship, the same church, or the same feeling. We keep looking backward saying, “God moved there,” when maybe He's saying, “Seek My face here.” And that's what I want to pass down to the next generation.
I can give my son the music that helped shape me. I can tell him my stories, teach him Scripture, and tell him about the places where God met me, but eventually he has to know Jesus for himself. I don't want to give him only my memories of God. I want to show him how to seek God himself.
Then we move into chapter 8, and after the fire and glory of chapter 7, everything suddenly feels ordinary again. There are cities to build, people to organize, work to do, and responsibilities to handle.
Basically, Monday morning came.
And that's real life.
Eventually the worship service ends. Eventually we leave the altar. Eventually the song in the car ends, we pull into the school parking lot, and my son has to open that door and walk inside. And so do we. That's where the encounter has to become more than a memory.
Do we live like we've been in His presence?
How do we treat people when the music isn't playing? How do we respond when we're frustrated? What do we allow into our hearts? What do we do when nobody is watching?
An encounter with Jesus should eventually show up in the way we live. I don't want my son to simply inherit my Christian music, my church memories, my ministry, or my stories about what God did. I want him to know the God behind all of it.
So I'm going to keep rolling those windows down and turning up some old-school Supertones whether he thinks they're cool or not. 😂 But more than anything, I'm going to keep pointing him toward Jesus. Because the place can change. The music can change. The people can change. The season can change.
But God doesn't. And he Never will!
That's what passing faith to the next generation really looks like, not teaching them to recreate our encounter with God, but teaching them how to seek Him for themselves.
Then, when the song ends and they walk through the doors they'll live like they've been in His presence.
Love Pastor Mandy
MandiesDandies / Ark of Hope
Daily reading 2 Chronicles 7-8
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