Looking Into The Tomorrow

There are so many things I want to do.  I have a mental list of things I want to accomplish and that I want to achieve before I die.  Now I know that I should be writing them down because that’s the smart thing to do, but I haven’t, and I’m probably not going to either.  I tell you this because I was sent down a unique path today when I was reading First Chronicles this morning.  It was the story of when King David wanted to build a house for God.  And God told him that he did not want David to build the house because he had done too much fighting and too much killing.  Therefore he wanted David’s son Solomon to build the temple.  God said that Solomon would be a man of peace.

I got to thinking that God is the one who directed and guided David to fight.  David is the one, by God’s sovereign hand, who brought peace to a country that had only known war.  Through David and his exploits, he subdued all of the Lord’s enemies and ushered in a season of peace.  Then when David wanted to do something not so bloody, but nice and peaceful God says no you can’t, but your son can.  That seems a bit unfair don’t ya think?  I think that, but then again I’m very short sighted.  I’m egotistically predisposed to actually think that everything revolves around me.

God began to help me realize that just because I have things in my heart and in my spirit that I want to do does not necessarily mean that I will get to do them with my life.  What if God actually sees outside my lifetime and into the lifetime of my children?  What if he is not just a now God, but a mulit-generational God?  My kids, the next generation, how can I invest in them?

I think of my Grandpa Joe who used to live here in Mississippi and plant churches in the 1950’s.  I wonder what dreams he had for the Kingdom of God and what he wanted to accomplish for the Kingdom of God.  He has passed, but here I am planting churches once again in Mississippi.  Wow!  Maybe God knows something.  And then I think back to King David and what he did.  What was his attitude?  When God told him no, then David shifted gears and did everything he could to prepare the means for his son Solomon to build the temple.  He began a huge effort to amass gargantuan amounts of materials so that his offspring could do what he could only dream.

So ponder with me if you will…what should we be doing to prepare for our children to do great things?  What can we lay our hands on now, that will set them up for a generational victory?  Are we making steps to advance the kingdom of God generationaly, or are we too busy complaining about what we can’t do, what we don’t have, and what we aren’t allowed to do?  As for me, I’ve decided that my kids do matter, and I want my ceiling to be their floor. Where my dreams stop, I want theirs to begin.  Let my furthest point in life be their first step.

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