Jul
6
2015
One Generation
Posted in Discipleship 2 Comments
I remember my mother’s bread pudding.
I remember it warm out of the oven, with a buttery smell that filled the house.
She had special dish she baked it in along with a pan that she always put underneath.
She put water in the pan, enough to cover the bottom, before placing the dish inside.
I never asked her why she put the dish in a pan with water before putting it in the oven.
I never asked her for the bread pudding recipe.
I was too young to think that having her recipe was important.
She died when I was fifteen and her recipe was never known.
She was the best kind of cook.
The kind of cook that doesn’t measure since the recipes were so much a part of her.
I knew some of the ingredients she used, since I would be in the kitchen with her.
However, I never knew the amounts or the oven temperature or the baking time.
I have found many bread pudding recipes through the years.
I have even tried a few.
Something is missing.
Something is just not right.
The recipe died with her, I remember telling a friend of mine.
It was something only she knew how to make that never got passed down to me.
I wanted to make sure that never happened with my children.
So they each received a cookbook.
It is our own cookbook with all the favorite family recipes.
My sons and my daughters know how to make all of our favorite things.
They are all very good cooks.
Each of them has added other recipes to the collection that have become their own.
As it should be.
Family recipes to pass down to the next generation.
My daughters will tease me that sometime the recipe doesn’t taste exactly the same.
It’s because Mom doesn’t measure, they say, which is partially true.
When you make something over and over, it becomes a part of you.
I really had to think about the amount of seasoning that a certain recipe needed.
How much garlic powder? I remember one of my daughters asking me one day.
Oh, I just make a big Zorro Z across the top, I said, as she looked terribly confused.
To them, a Zorro Z meant nothing.
Zorro wore a black mask and a cape as he avenged the helpless and the oppressed.
Zorro’s favorite weapon was a rapier, which he used to leave his distinguished mark.
That mark was a Z cut in three quick strokes.
When I added seasoning to a recipe, I made a quick Z on the top.
That amount was always just right and perfect for our taste.
However, when it came time to write down a favorite recipe that Z was not enough.
They needed to know amounts and I had to take the time to measure.
I never wanted the family recipes to die with me as they did with my mother.
They were to be passed on to my children and then to their children if they choose.
The recipes were a culinary legacy from me to them.
Care had to be taken in the transfer from one generation to the next.
Now fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! It was the Lord our God Himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We, too, will serve the Lord because He is our God.”
(Joshua 24:14-18)
As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
That was a bold statement.
That was the decided action based upon the history the people had with the Lord.
All He is and all He had done for them was known and passed down to their children.
The spiritual legacy was passed down well to the next generation.
There were no guessing, no quick strokes of remembrance.
There was a purposeful passing down of the faith.
Just the way God intended.
Unfortunately, that purposeful passing was short lived.
The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel…After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord or what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord…they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers…they followed and worshiped various gods of the people around them. They provoked the Lord to anger…(Judges 2:7,10-12)
The faith was not purposefully passed from one generation to the next after Joshua died.
A whole generation grew up who did not know the Lord or what He had done for them.
The recipe of the faith died with him.
The older failed to teach the younger and the tenets of the faith were lost.
It only took one generation to lose their faith.
It only took one generation for God to be known and then not known.
It only took one generation to stop worshiping the one, true God.
It only took one generation to begin worshiping the gods of the age.
One generation.
One generation away from failing to purposely pass our faith on to our children.
We are only one generation away at any time of losing our legacy of faith.
That is a sobering fact.
How well are we doing?
We pass family recipes along far easier than our faith.
We pass along the fleeting, unimportant things but fail to pass along what is eternal.
May that never happen on our watch.
The legacy of faith is too important.
The Gospel must be purposefully passed to the next generation.
The full Gospel must be passed accurately and clearly.
May the legacy of our faith never die with us but rather live on in our children.
As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
Amen?
Gina, you are so right! And your family is a wonderful example of how your faith has been passed on. God bless you!
What a lovely thing to say, Sue!
Only by God’s grace…
Gina