The song Photograph by the band Nickelback is an interesting reflection through a collection of memories seen by photographs that are on the floor and a trip through childhood and youth, and it concludes. While it may not be easy, it's time to say goodbye. Sadly, many see their youth and personal history as a past without significance to the future. So they depart from this kind of playful land of youthful nostalgia. And they're taught to follow their hearts to a new adventure and new beginnings. A heart that does not see God's heritage in its youth and it often becomes somewhat deaf and blind to God's working in the present and the future. This life then looks for new light instead of rekindling the old light that was passed down. The one that's from God to light our path toward the kingdom of heaven. What can be done to quicken the eyes and the ears of the hearts of our kids so that they can find and enjoy the kingdom of heaven before they say goodbye?
Ethan:Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture.
This is Raising Joyful Children in an Angry World. I'm your host, Paul Osborne. Today, as we come to the final couple chapters of the book, I wanted to take some time before we move into new material for next year to express the importance of our childhood memories and stories and how I believe it plays a role in pointing our hearts towards God. You may have seen Tolkien's movie, The Hobbit from his book, The Hobbit, the movie version of it. And the Snow Queen is standing there. She's not moving her lips. No words are coming out. But her voice is being heard in the heart of Gandalf. He's not even looking at her. But those words we can hear as we're watching the movie. It inspires him to lead the dwarfs and the Baggins to fight their enemy and find the Lost Kingdom. It's a beautiful picture. of the voice of the Spirit coming into the heart. It's hard to describe the way God speaks to the heart. It's even harder to tell parents, well, how do we prepare the hearts of our children to hear the voice of God? Because there's really no three steps or five steps or do this and then rest some sort of recipe. But the Bible does emphasize to us what we remember and how we remember plays a role in our spiritual journey. How we help our kids recognize their heritage, their spiritual inheritance is important. And memory and recalling memories and telling stories and celebrating them is part of how it works. watch a college football game, basketball, whatever sport, and there's some new star player that's emerging. And you will almost always see his parents and some photograph of him or her on their youth team. Maybe a little high school trophy will be shown. We walk into the bedroom of most teens and the room will be decorated with some photographs and memories of events. Because we celebrate our lives by successes and wins and achievements. And that's sort of what the song photographs trying to show us. But then as we sort of walk through this adolescence and we start trying to make sense of it all. If we don't have a heritage, a spiritual heritage of memories to understand, well, we tend to say goodbye. And we try to decide, well, what do we keep and what do we leave? One of the interesting things I saw regarding this, this issue of memories and the heart and the heritage, our, our Christian heritage, was done on a Confirmation Sunday. It was a confirmation class that our pastor led. And it really gave some interesting guidance in how he handled it. Each child was given a project board. And on this poster board were pictures of various stages in their lives. But it included some words or memories or pictures of their baptism. of a mission trip, of something that had to do with their family and their faith, as well as the sports and the activities and stuff at school. The point, and you could hear it as they described it, was seeing the hand of God and the blessings of God in the various stages of their life. When kids can see the picture of their life as if God had some of those photographs, On the refrigerator in heaven, metaphorically speaking, it helps in seeing meaning and purpose of God's love in your life. Children become young adults and young adults question who they are. We've talked about this on every podcast. Who you are, what you believe, where you belong, and how they move from The sands of ambiguity that are throughout this culture, where people are questioning everything about themselves, to the foundational certainty and clarity of Christianity. it can't be seen in some sort of nickelback disciple where we sort of leave behind this American nostalgia, this mix of childhood folly and laughs. And when we do that, it puts the heart in like a Bluetooth search mode. It's trying to connect to something and what we're trying to do as parents and as family in our stories That include connection to God and his love and his blessings and in our experiences in our life Is we're trying to connect that heart device to God himself now make no mistake This is this is where everybody ends up at some point you may recall Christina Aguilera's song beautiful in which she repeats. I'm beautiful No matter what people say and no matter what people think and it's kind of that along the song kind of goes along this whole, you know, no matter what people think of me, I'm beautiful. I'm beautiful. It sort of becomes a coping mechanism. It's all over our music, our movies, and our stories, and it certainly has some value to be able to it. value yourself, but it's not long lasting. The lyrics reveal the soul battling to find identity beyond what the world says. I can take you through songs from Frank Sinatra to Katy Perry. We are taught to land our soul then by these songs and in this struggle on what I call the runway. of self reflection that leads to self determination. The songs and the culture. It takes us back to a philosophy we discussed early on. When we talked about what makes us angry, and we looked at Montaigne when we were walking through the book, Why We Are Restless. The French philosopher said it this way, I don't care so much what I am to others, as much as what I am to myself. See, this is the crux of raising joyful children into joyful adults. Living beyond self reflection and seeing yourself and your life as a reflection God made in his image. Not that we're God, but we are made in his image, called to his purpose, given his talents. And that is the joy line. And this is so foreign to us. It confronts almost every vestige of our culture, our selfie life. Our willing, our way to victory that we hear in almost every sports. Oh, he willed his way to victory. Our self determination. We eat, drink, and believe this stuff constantly while ignoring all the evidence that the heart remains restless, the soul confused. The self proclamations in our nation become more ridiculous as we go on. And if it weren't for a well stocked country and self medication, We couldn't keep swimming in this swamp and might just come to our senses. Look, the crux of joyful children becoming joyful adults is, is seeing ourself as One created in his image with talents and gifts and purpose and the freedom to exercise those talents and purpose and passions in his kingdom. It begins by recognizing his sovereignty. As the king who loves you, knows you, and cares for you. So the stories we tell, the photographs we share, have to have some reminder of what God did, and is doing, and will do. When Joshua crosses the Jordan, the priest are instructed, pick up the river rocks, to remind you of what God did as he dried up the path as you walked into the promised land. The Passover feast is remembering how God spared the firstborn of the Hebrew family. Christmas, Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Easter, Pentecost, Transfiguration, Ascension Sunday. The Church calendar, though it was more engaged years past, but its remembrance of holy days, of feasts, and of sacraments in the Lord's Supper is to help the Church not forget her identity. The feasts are remembering what God did in the history of the faith. Now let me be clear. I'm not trying to get into a debate on how churches should be remembering these days and how it should be dealing with sacraments and all these sorts of things. Not, not today. But the history of our faith, the words of our Bible remind us to remember what God did in our life. And this is something we have to do and should do as a family. It includes holidays. But it also can be days that we create in our own family that are remembrances of what God did. It's birthdays. It just goes on. But God has to be in the picture. Far too many of us have the ability to give our kids the world. We've got the financial resources to do more for them than perhaps was done for us. And we tend to forget, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Remembrance is how we don't get caught up in that. The Bible says, remember the Sabbath day. Remember that it was the God that delivered you from Egypt. Psalm 77 and most others. Then I recall the days of old when, you know, God blessed me in this way or that way. Martin Luther says, remember your baptism. John Calvin says, remember your condition is like Abraham. You're dependent upon God. Aquinas says, look. Spiritual things are harder to remember. They're harder to hold on to. So you gotta strive a little harder for them. Which is why we do things like feasts and stories over and over and over. Memories move the soul of the child nearer to the truth and the light of God as we tell those stories. And by God's grace, their hearts connect. And the gifts and purpose and passions and the mysteries of their life are revealed and the joy of God is released to them day by day. Chris Tomlin's song, Is He Worthy, he's quoting from the book of Revelation in the fifth chapter by asking, is he worthy? Who can break the seals? Who can open the scroll? Jesus. It becomes the answer in the text, because he was the one who was slain. The Lion of Judah must break the seven seals to open the scroll and reveal God's will and love. I always want to be careful not to use the scriptures improperly. And this text is about so much more than ourselves. But it also does act as a reminder that in these mysteries of life. There are things that we cannot reveal to ourselves. There are doors, there are seals that we cannot open on our own. We can try as we might, we can slam on the seal all day. We can tell ourselves a thousand times what we believe God thinks about us and what's written on that scroll. But only the King, only the King who died and rose, has the power and the authority to do it, and to break the seal and to open the scroll in the Kingdom of Heaven and in the lives of our kids. The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight for identity. Our king invites our kids to know who they are, what to believe, and where they belong. Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.