Growth Remembering your Roots

[Sandy Zalecki]

"Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

Just yesterday I got an email for an old classmate of mine. Our 40th class reunion is approaching and he wanted to know what childhood memories we had of our hometown. I was raised in a very small town and the list started to look like Mayberry. We remember things like the guy that gave all the kids juicy fruit gum, gatherings at the drive-in after a baseball game, Boy Scout outings, prom night (and the attire that went with it from the 1970's), and the county fair.

All of these memories are great but some of my memories are of a different kind. I remember the little country church that was cold in the winter and warm in the summer. It only had four pews but it was warm with the people who loved us and the spirit of God. I remember Sunrise Services up on top of the hill overlooking the town. There were, and still are, three crosses on top of the hill. It was usually still cold at 6:00AM in March or April, but the beauty of the sunrise, the town below, and the remembrance of Jesus sacrifice is still fresh in my mind. Memorizing scripture and lines for the annual Christmas play at the church still stir up great memories for me.

All of the childhood memories that we have mold us for what we will be when we grow up. If you are a parent of small children, make it a point to instill spiritual memories in your children that will last a lifetime. These memories will be something they can cling to when the hard times come. If they go astray when the get older, we have a promise from God that they will someday return to their roots. If they have no spiritual roots to return to what have we really given them?

 

[Christ_empowered]

I wasn't raised Christian. Nominally liberal PCUSA, which is to say...not Christian, lol.

But my older, wiser, Pentecostal friend..now she was raised Christian. And she shares her stories with me (she's in her early 70s). And I absorb them, and its almost as if...well, not as if I'm there, living it, but I see the beauty in it, and I take lessons from her and her life.

So, yes; raise them up in the way they should go, absolutely. If you didn't get that kind of upbringing, find an older mentor.

 

[Deborah13]

I believe proverbs are words of wisdom.

 

[rthom7]

Training us as little children with child like faith is what the "torah teachings" are all about....they are a tutor to bring us up into Christ...I used to be a school teacher and training children to become mature thinking was my aim as teachers we are patient and kind towards the younger ones....Once we reach maturity as adults we are still children only in bigger bodies and our role of the tutor never goes away, despite what some try to say....the Bible is broadly all the torah-teachings, and there is always more to learn and more to teach despite our old we become, we are still children with child like faith..

Pr 6:20 ¶ My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law "torah teachings" of thy mother:

This is a poetry picture of the training of earthly and heavenly children, The Father's ten commandments is one picture, and the Holy Spirit's torah teachings is another picture. Both serve to train us into children of the Heavenly Father.

I am glad my teacher in heaven is patient with me, training to be like Him, is fun, we are yoked but God takes the heavier burden while I take a smaller one....in Hebrew times a youth ox was tied together to a mature ox, and they both worked together on the ploughing field, the younger learning for the older....such is Jesus and us, yoked together with our daily burdens of His love.....Shalom

 

[Edward]

...

I am glad my teacher in heaven is patient with me, training to be like Him, is fun, we are yoked but God takes the heavier burden while I take a smaller one....in Hebrew times a youth ox was tied together to a mature ox, and they both worked together on the ploughing field, the younger learning for the older....such is Jesus and us, yoked together with our daily burdens of His love.....Shalom

I Know!! Isn't that great brother?!

I've thought about this a lot, and I think that, that God is longsuffering is perhaps one of the biggest blessings we've ever had! He is very patient and i have a lot of appreciation for that because I am a slow learner. (Not by the worlds standards, but spiritual standards!) I think a lot of us are slow learners, lol. Although I listen to certain Pastors and stuff who tell how they have been into spiritual life since they were youngsters and I am a little envious of this. I had my chance when i was about 14 or so, but turned my back on God to chase the ways of the world. When I think about where I could be spiritually if I had hung in there, it's a little depressing to me. All the things I could have done for the Lord! All of the work He could have done through me in that time...dangit. Forgive me, lord!

Praise the Lord for His longsuffering!

On topic, great post, Sandy! Little children soak up info like a sponge during their first 6 years, the formative years. They could be soaking up Jesus in those six years people! Pray with them, take them to church, get them talking to God while they are young, and when they are old, they will not depart from it.

Ohh, I wish that I had done this for my kids.

 

[jasonc]

I wasn't raised in the faith, but was in the cult of the Jehovah's Witnesses and also a tinge of Judaism.

 

[clark thompson]

Often times people will go away from God but the values they learned often will bring them back.

 

[rthom7]

Edward you are so right we are all spiritually slow, but I love how he LORD loves to train us and never gets weary of doing so...

Jason I hear you, but it doesn't matter which assembly we witness to as long as we are sola scriptora and listening to the teachings via the Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus.

Jon 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

Jews called other non-Jews cattle, the Greeks called them barbarians, yet even God smiled along with Jonah's antics, God has good people in every city and every denomination.

Yes Clark, train a child the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart

May be all prove a blessing with His words, wherever we are ! Shalom

 

[Deborah13]

Edward you are so right we are all spiritually slow, but I love how he LORD loves to train us and never gets weary of doing so...

Jason I hear you, but it doesn't matter which assembly we witness to as long as we are sola scriptora and listening to the teachings via the Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus.

Jon 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

Jews called other non-Jews cattle, the Greeks called them barbarians, yet even God smiled along with Jonah's antics, God has good people in every city and every denomination.

Yes Clark, train a child the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart

May be all prove a blessing with His words, wherever we are ! Shalom

Just a note, imo,
Nineveh was a totally gentile city. All the people who didn't know their left from their right hand (didn't have knowledge of YHVH) were gentiles and their cattle were their cattle (mute beasts) that they fed their children with. Sometimes when God destroyed a city there was not any living being left alive, including the animals.
In 4:11, that is God speaking not Jonah and God is not calling gentiles cattle.
God is saying shouldn't He decide if He will spare these gentiles and their herds. Who is Jonah to refuse God and make this decision?

 

[rthom7]

Just a note, imo,
Nineveh was a totally gentile city. All the people who didn't know their left from their right hand (didn't have knowledge of YHVH) were gentiles and their cattle were their cattle (mute beasts) that they fed their children with. Sometimes when God destroyed a city there was not any living being left alive, including the animals.
In 4:11, that is God speaking not Jonah and God is not calling gentiles cattle.
God is saying shouldn't He decide if He will spare these gentiles and their herds. Who is Jonah to refuse God and make this decision?

Yes Deborah, your can take it as literally cattle and it was a Gentile city that God was concerned about....but it can also be an idiom, a language saying....consider this verse

Mt 15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

Unfortunately those inside their churches tend to look upon outsiders as dogs. (or cattle, or barbarians) we Christians have to be more like Jesus and treat all people with respect....

Shalom

 

[Deborah13]

Yes Deborah, your can take it as literally cattle and it was a Gentile city that God was concerned about....but it can also be an idiom, a language saying....consider this verse

Mt 15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

Unfortunately those inside their churches tend to look upon outsiders as dogs. (or cattle, or barbarians) we Christians have to be more like Jesus and treat all people with respect....

Shalom

Dog I see used this way in scripture, a dog being an unclean animal. I don't ever see cattle used this way in scripture and can't imagine it would be considering cattle are clean animals to the Jews.

I don't know if you have ever known any Jews in Judaism but I have. Some were respectful and kind, some were not, just like everyone else on the planet.
I was fairly close to two different older Jewish couples from the age of 12 until they retired when I was about 22. They were wonderfully kind and encouraging to that little gentile girl and then to her two toddlers, too. Every time I think of them I smile.
So please forgive me if I am a little touchy about broad statements about Jewish people. I have met Christians that were far more arrogant about being a Christian than either of these couples were about being Jewish.
My grandson's doctor at National Jewish Health, is an Orthodox Jew, he's great.

 

[jasonc]

Dog I see used this way in scripture, a dog being an unclean animal. I don't ever see cattle used this way in scripture and can't imagine it would be considering cattle are clean animals to the Jews.

I don't know if you have ever known any Jews in Judaism but I have. Some were respectful and kind, some were not, just like everyone else on the planet.
I was fairly close to two different older Jewish couples from the age of 12 until they retired when I was about 22. They were wonderfully kind and encouraging to that little gentile girl and then to her two toddlers, too. Every time I think of them I smile.
So please forgive me if I am a little touchy about broad statements about Jewish people. I have met Christians that were far more arrogant about being a Christian than either of these couples were about being Jewish.
My grandson's doctor at National Jewish Health, is an Orthodox Jew, he's great.

Hebrews are mixed lot. I like fb as I can observe the ones in my family. each of them is unique. of those there, I don't see any arroganance in their posts. I know my grandparents were liberals and so was my uncle and all of them care for the poor. my grandpa would allow black men to drink from the white fountains, he was nearly arrested for doing that, he also mentored some of the poor.

 

[rthom7]

I apologize Deborah if you thought my context was racist . It was not. I am simply quoting Scripture and using Scripture to tell its own story....Shalom

 

[Deborah13]

I apologize Deborah if you thought my context was racist . It was not. I am simply quoting Scripture and using Scripture to tell its own story....Shalom

Oh no, not racist and I'm sorry for causing you to think that. I don't think about race as the factor. We tend to paint with very broad brushes for many different groups. Some Dems. would say ALL Rep. are heartless and greedy, not true. Some Reb, will say that ALL Dems. are pro-abortion, not true. Some of each will say ALL libertarians are pro-abortion. Sheesh....Ron Paul is pro-abortion? Nothing could be further from the truth.
You get the idea.
Shalom to you, as well.

 

[for_his_glory]

I've been doing a lot of ancestry the past couple of months and to see how my roots were Christian based with people of simple values and love for one another made me look back on my own life before and after I made that personal commitment to God that I would serve Him for the rest of my life. I was brought up in the church, but church wasn't in me. I wasn't rebellious growing up, but mostly angry because of the rage of my father that was instilled in me. It was my mother and grandparents that taught me how to love, but always had that tug of war between anger and love. It wasn't until God allowed me to come completely broken before Him that I at that time looked up and truly saw Gods face (not literal face) and for the first time in my life I understood what love was all about. The roots of love started welling up in me to show me the person God made me to be and not the one I wanted to be. The very roots of our Spiritual foundation is that unconditional love that hung on a cross, suffered, died and rose again that showed me that it was Gods righteousness that needed to be found in me as my own was as a filthy rag to Him. My feet are now rooted and grounded in His word alone and I pray that in my journeys I have instilled the faith and love of God in others that He has instilled in me. Train up a child, but be careful for what you are training them.

 

[Angel]

I can remember being in AWANA when I was 3 years old. I continued to the age of 15, maybe more years, I can't remember. When I was 8 years old, my Mom asked me in the car if I asked Jesus into my heart. I wasn't sure, so when we got home I ran up to my room, got on my knee's at the end of my bed, and asked Jesus into my heart. When I was 16 I went through oppression, and I prayed to God that I would not die without knowing Him. Then for a time I seriously rebelled, but I remember weeping for God to restore me. And then, after many incidents, God did just that.

I am not the most disciplined, and I am asking God for the fruit of self-control. I'm sick of slipping up. But I cannot change unless Jesus does a work in my heart.. that I may die to my flesh and take up my cross. That in and of its self frightens me a little... Following Jesus is serious stuff! How can I lose my life and in doing so save it? I must guard my heart and stay sober and alert.

 

[for_his_glory]

Angel, that is one of the most important factors is that we have to guard our heart and be aware of the devices Satan loves to throw in our path. Be grounded, rooted and focused on the things of the Lord.