What are you passing down?
When my parents moved out of my childhood home, I packed up a few small boxes of mementos from my younger years thinking, “One day, if I have a daughter, I will pass these toys along to her and she can enjoy them as her own.”
The day finally arrived, so I hauled the dust covered box inside and emptied its contents on to the kitchen table. Her eyes filled with excitement and wonder and she began filtering through my childhood possessions and adopting a few as her own.
Paul, a spiritual father to Timothy, wrote him a letter of encouragement to spur him along in his faith and ministry. In 2 Timothy 1:5 he said, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”
What are you passing down to your children?
What gifts, blessings, and possessions are you hoping to give them as an inheritance?
Each item in the storage box was thoughtfully chosen from an earlier time in my life, but those items have been sitting in an attic for decades. They haven’t been played with, rather they’ve been preserved for the future with hopes that my child would enjoy them as her own one day.
Timothy’s mother and grandmother did not give him a box of possessions for temporary enjoyment. Rather, they passed on to him something worth much more – faith. And that’s what I hope to pass down to my children. Sure, it’s fun to see them playing with my old toys or wearing my old baby clothes, but they will eventually outgrow those things and their value will decrease.
Yet faith in Christ never loses value. It grows in increasing measure, staying with us through this lifetime and the next. But if we keep our faith tucked away, going unused and unseen, we’re doing a huge disservice to our children. We can leave them everything we own but if they don’t possess a sincere faith in Christ, it’s all a loss.
So let’s live out our faith before the eyes of our children, mommas. Let’s keep it in plain sight for all to see. Our failures, our victories, our struggles, and questions – let’s not hide them from our children. May they see us depending on God and not ourselves. May they witness us humbling ourselves before him seeking mercy and grace rather than puffing ourselves up with pride.
May our faith be tangible. May it touch their lives and may they see it in action in the way we love, discipline, and train them. And then let us pray that the sincere faith we hold so dear in our own hearts would be the very same faith they choose to adopt as their own one day. An eternal inheritance, a great reward!
