Tell the next generation

Some of you are old enough to remember Art Linkletter’s TV show called “House Party” where he interviewed 4 and 5 year old children. Bill Cosby’s show, “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” was based on Linkletter’s program.  I think about those shows and how good Caleb, five years old, and Emma, four years old, would be if they could have appeared on them.

They are clever kids—all our grandchildren are smart dudes! They both can come up with some great one-liners. Here are a few examples: Emma came home from pre-K and confessed to her mother that she had said something that she should not have said. Mom asks what she had said, and Emma said “Oh my God.” Mom asks, “So what do you think you should have said, Emma?” Emma thinks a moment and then says, “Oh, my Jesus?” When Kimberly was encouraging Emma to eat her dinner, Emma looked mom in the eye and asks, “Do you really WANT me to throw up?”

”One Sunday as we were preparing to eat lunch after church at our house Caleb just walked up to me, looked up, and said, “Papa, time has not been good to you!” He asks a lot of questions—normal, right? But, some of them go like this: “Why are there lines hanging from poles along the road?” “Why is the sky blue?” I try to answer all of his questions with brief explanations. I recently learned that maybe I should not answer all of his questions as he asked me: “Papa, do you know everything?”

I assured him that I don’t know everything, but one thing for sure is that I want to know enough to share life lessons with our grandchildren. I want them to know about the everlasting God of the Universe. I want them to know that they are a person of worth created in the image of God to have an eternal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

My job is this: “That you may tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever.” Psalm 48:12-14 (ESV)