I am convinced our awareness of generations enlarges as we
get older. When we are young the only generations we are interested in are our
parents, siblings and maybe our grandparents. As we age we have our own
children and grandchildren and I have found that I have developed a sandwich
filling mentality. By this I mean that I feel like the ham or jam in a sandwich
by which those before me are one slice of bread and those younger are the
other.
When younger I had little interest in previous generations
but as I have got older I have pored over the family tree wondering about those
who lived before my time. I have developed a sense of progression, not just of
the people but of the lives they lived. Many of my forebears were what would
have been sniffily called ‘trade’. They
were glaziers, miners, milkmen. Then my grandfather broke the mould and made
the transition from the rank and file to management and then senior management. His was
a lifestyle undreamed of by those who went before and as a result my father and
aunts were educated and became professional people.
My generation benefitted financially as well as
educationally from this. We enjoyed the benefits of the inheritance bequeathed
to us; our own home, private education and travel. In my day we grew up knowing
if we worked hard in all areas of life we too would one day have the lifestyle
of our parents. Now our children have all been educated to degree level and in
turn have not just good jobs but careers and a lifestyle that matches or even
exceeds their parents.
However it is not just the material and education that are
bequeathed from generation to generation. Looks, talents and abilities are
also passed on. In addition and of great personal interest to me is the spiritual inheritance that can be handed down. The Bible
has much to say about passing on to our children their spiritual
inheritance. When God made covenants
with Noah, Abraham, Moses, the Israelites and David it was not just for their
generation but for the generations to come.
Throughout the Bible God exhorts the Israelites to pass on
to their children what they have learned. These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me
to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to
possess, so that you, your children and their children after them
may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and
commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life Deuteronomy 6: 1
– 2
God promises to show love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my
commandments. Deuteronomy 5: 10
I also became aware as I grew in my Christian faith that as
well as the good and Godly aspects of inheritance, we can also be passed on
generational sickness and problems. There is no doubt that divorce seems to run
in families, as well as things such as rejection, debt, addiction or abuse. It
is this aspect that I have been exploring in the Nick North series of books.
Nick has no idea who his father is but in fulfilling the
quest that the Shepherd offers him, he discovers that in generations past a
curse spoken over his family has caused generations to suffer all manner of ills.
He deals with both the past and the present ending the cycle of broken
relationships and abuse.
In the second book the Shepherd and Nick help Leone break
the cycle of guilt and anger that has plagued her family since a tragic
incident in the First World War.
As I have become aware of my own previous generations, I
have become increasingly thankful for the Godly inheritance that I have inherited and even more thankful to God for the fact that he can set us free from
the negative inheritances we may have been bequeathed.
