November 16, 2023

Judge 2:6-15

Photo of an adult hand holding a baby hand by Aditya Romansa on Unsplash

“After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.”

There may be no more enduring meme than the angry old guy yelling, “Get off my lawn!” It seems that every generation feels like the “youth” are terrible and only getting worse. They look at the world and say, “These darn kids are hopeless.”

The younger generation mocks the older as well. “OK Boomer,” is the refrain that rings out these days.

Perhaps it's human nature to dislike the young or the old.

What strikes me is that so often we complain about the “youth” without taking a moment to consider the reality that those of us in the previous generations are responsible for the emerging generations.

Do we really care?

The emerging generations don't appear out of nowhere. They parented and raised by someone. Who could it be? Oh, yeah, the previous generations.

As I read this passage it finally hit me that the people in the previous generations didn't continue to pass on the stories of the God-Who-Saves to the next. Eventually, the people found themselves alone in the wilderness so to speak. It isn't the fault of the emerging generation.

I am coming to think that every emerging generation is a reflection of the inner realities of the previous generation.

Think about that for a moment.

We take what is in us and implant those values and principles into those we raise. They then embody those things. If we don't like what we see, it's our fault, not theirs. People can only ultimately only know what they've been taught.

And more is caught than taught.

Wait, what?

How we live is the clearest display of what we really think and believe. That gets caught by the emerging generations.

What we see in them that we appreciate and despise are things that we as the previous generation implanted in them through our display of life and what we specifically taught. Some of it also a reaction against the things that they see as hypocritical and wrong (which it almost always is).

The question I'm pondering, “How am I displaying for the emerging generations the life of love, grace, and mercy?”

Discuss...

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