Daily Reading for Friday, Feb. 15: Mentoring
“Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. 2 Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm… 18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.” Deuteronomy 11:1-2, 18-21
Have you ever had an experience that was so overwhelming, so incredible that you just had to tell someone about it? And then, when you tried to explain to them how wonderful it was, there was no possible way for you to get them to understand that experience? You were probably frustrated and simply ended up saying, “Oh well, I guess you had to be there.” It’s a funny thing about these types of experiences—it was such a wonderful thing for you, and yet, impossible to portray to someone else.
The Israelites were in a similar situation. In this passage, God is telling the Israelites how to transmit their life of faith from one generation (who had seen the wonders of God performed) to the next (who had not.) God is extremely interested in keeping faith alive throughout generations. He is not short-sighted, only enjoying the response of one generation to His word. He sees through His timeless gaze to the countless generations of individuals who will call upon His name. And so He commanded to Israelites to teach their children—first by example (verse 1), and then with words (verses 18-20). Mentoring is that act of generational transmission. We mentor when we live what we say we believe, and God has promised that when we mentor that way, we will reap the rewards of seeing our children (both natural and otherwise) serving the Lord and living in His blessing.
Have you ever had an experience that was so overwhelming, so incredible that you just had to tell someone about it? And then, when you tried to explain to them how wonderful it was, there was no possible way for you to get them to understand that experience? You were probably frustrated and simply ended up saying, “Oh well, I guess you had to be there.” It’s a funny thing about these types of experiences—it was such a wonderful thing for you, and yet, impossible to portray to someone else.
The Israelites were in a similar situation. In this passage, God is telling the Israelites how to transmit their life of faith from one generation (who had seen the wonders of God performed) to the next (who had not.) God is extremely interested in keeping faith alive throughout generations. He is not short-sighted, only enjoying the response of one generation to His word. He sees through His timeless gaze to the countless generations of individuals who will call upon His name. And so He commanded to Israelites to teach their children—first by example (verse 1), and then with words (verses 18-20). Mentoring is that act of generational transmission. We mentor when we live what we say we believe, and God has promised that when we mentor that way, we will reap the rewards of seeing our children (both natural and otherwise) serving the Lord and living in His blessing.
Labels: Christianity, core values, mentoring devotion, missional
posted by Jennifer Rang at
12:01 AM
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