The Law of Sowing and Reaping. RE: Our Youth: A Harvest of Poor Stewardship and Heartbreak

Beloved race runners, this feast of the heart at the Training Table is very hard to swallow, but we must chew our food well, allow what we ingest of God’s Truth and Love to animate our every thought, word, and deed… Even when it means taking our medicine.

This feast at the table takes into account a subject that is near and dear to my heart—which matters little. But what does matter far, far more is what matters to Immanuel, God with us, Jesus Christ. It matters so much so that He said the following of the subject we’ll be feasting on today:

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea’” (Matthew 18:1-6—emphasis added).

Not only does this issue matter to the only One that matters, but it should completely and utterly matter to His disciples running the good race as well!

If my life is any sort of example (which again, matters little), each and every person with even a spark of conscience should be brokenheartedly and genuinely repentant (for sins of omission and/or commission) about the fare we’re gathered here today to share at the table.

AND, AND, in line with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, each of us is then free to beseech the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for forgiveness, reconciliation, and a strong, renewed, passionate, urgent, and intentional spirit of redemptive action—right where God has planted us to live and “co-redeem” with Him—to make every effort to reverse the specific curse we’re addressing “Today…” (Psalm 95:7-8)!

Consider God’s inspired and most holy Word about the subject of our children: A sacred stewardship, once neglected and abused, will spell wholesale destruction every time!

“For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” (Genesis 18:19); “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them” (Deuteronomy 4:9); “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:7); “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 11:19); “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139); “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6); “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

Please stop for a time to allow the Spirit to reach your heart and your affections by means of these passages.

CAVEAT #1—this subject matter is wildly complicated and should always be treated with extreme deference, respect, patience, compassion, and perseverance. Our (mostly) secular and surface-level treatment of most every subject is far more simplistic and reductionistic than it should be: The fast, easy, and convenient solutions that reduce any problem to one or two cause-and-effect connections are designed to allow us assuage / suppress our guilt, to blame, deflect, and to just move on while remaining in denial about the real root causes of living in a horribly broken world, to take the responsibility due us—and to avoid the solutions God brings to bear on any issue which are made extremely complicated by the intrusion and institutionalization of sin! NOTE: “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (v. 14, Jeremiah 6:1–15). Does that insight from God’s inspired word not go to the heart of the problem?! It so aptly describes the simplistic, surface, and ashamedly lazy approach to so many things today it sends chills down my spine, Beloved of God.

CAVEAT #2—this content and brief analysis uncovers a wide array of extremely sensitive subjects. It will impact everyone on a very personal yet universal level. It is not my intention to condemn any person or sinner, but do so with as much force I (and God) can muster in the ways of our individual and collective Sin. If feelings of guilt in you either “seep in” or “feel like a tsunami” please, please take the time and self-scrutiny necessary to do an analysis (in a community of faith) of whether it is true or false guilt: If true guilt, please see it for what it truly is… down deep (Psalm 51)… and bring it to the foot of the cross for God’s forgiveness in Christ; if false, please free yourself of the burden (Romans 8) that is killing you one way or the other. I am only one sinner saved by grace and aiming to speak the truth in love in highly fallible ways, but I am as confident as the One Who stands behind what I say (2 Timothy 3:16) about the nature of this piece.

CAVEAT #3—the breadth and depth of issues associated with this subject is immense. Every person on the planet should always be treated as the marvelously and wondrously made (Psalm 139), yet fallen Image Bearer of God (Romans 3:23)—some born-again, new creations in Christ, some not: The Bible tells us that this is the make-up of all humanity (1 John). If I offer any sweeping characterizations of any issue, please take the time to consider it on the most personal and redemptive level possible. There is no guilt that cannot be dealt with by God AND then used for the purposes of redeeming any sort of brokenness for the welfare of the living and the status of our eternal existence as well!

CAVEAT #4—without exception all of the issues below deal with an area of my own personal life that can be taken as an example of ways I have sinned and fallen so far short of anything remotely meritorious that… Well, suffice it to say that there is nothing important in life where my own life couldn’t serve as an example of how NOT to live. But I have been made a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and called to speak into this world where God has planted me. So please, don’t even go there by avoiding self-examination or responsibility by saying, “Who are you to judge?!” In the realms of using the Bible, common and special grace, and good sense, I’m judging sin as sin and myself as saved and forgiven by God. I’m not judging anyone’s heart as only God can, does at present, and will in each of our giving an account (Romans 14:12) when Jesus returns. Using one’s judgment of right and wrong is a God-given gift of His grace. It should never be silenced by an incorrect and convenient misapplication of the Bible by those who want to do whatever they please.

CAVEAT #5—in any number of ways, I have been speaking out on these issues for decades. Even though recent events [the Sandy Hook massacre] have prompted “another crack at it”, it’s important to know that I am not being reactionary, but rather “timely yet eternal”: The only true God of all things is resolute in this area. Temporal, eternal, and deep joy is offered in redeeming this issue; temporal, eternal, and deep condemnation is offered in neglecting this issue. There’s no gray area here. Each and every one of us has a stake in the issue and feigning to justify our sins of omission or commission will not only not go unnoticed by God, but will absolutely destroy anyone’s heart “TODAY…” (Psalm 95:7-8)—which is, in many ways, what I’m called to help others avoid at any cost (Proverbs 4:23). Hence my life and ministry, “Feast of the Heart”—from one as hardened as mine, and yet redeemed to help redeem others as well. The content below offers innumerable avenues, for anyone who cares enough to do so, to make a positive impact or change in the world—for kids… Human beings.

The Law of Sowing and Reaping. Our Youth: A Harvest of Poor Stewardship and Heartbreak

OUT with God’s beginnings in creation, IN with anti-theistic, naturalistic myth: Beginning in 1928 (RE: Scopes trial) the theory of evolution gained much “credibility” and traction. By the mid-1990’s, and earlier, the vast majority of schools instructed children in a wide array of subjects through the “science” (“the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation”… or not…) of Darwinian evolution.

There has never been, nor will there ever be, credible (real) science to support anti-theistic, naturalistic evolution: The fuel for one of the most destructive lies of all time is man’s idolatry of his own enlightened… endarkened… view of himself (Jeremiah 2; Romans 1:18-32) devoid of God.

Children—generations of our precious one’s—have been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that the origin of their life is nothing more than an advanced form of muck PLUS randomness PLUS as many billions of years to achieve the impossible that it takes to make a lie from the pit of hell… credible. AND that the sense of their destiny is no loftier or hopeful than being food for worms, a long-forgotten grave marker of some passing era, a blip of a good or bad deed forgotten before the next app is introduced, or never quite pretty, just handsome, well bred, or fit enough.

Having been born of pure chance into a lineage of one or the other molecular, crawling, or hairy beasts, the expectations of our beloved children are—by necessity—by comparison, parental projection, or pure competiveness, “Be all you can be!” Which cannot logically aspire to anything greater than varying degrees of our youth’s heart-breaking nihilism (and cry for meaning), “Whatever!” Have you really considered this generational claim of apathy and anger?

So many, many children do not have any sense of identity and worth ordained and imparted by God that transcends the avarice, arbitrary, meritorious, comparative, narcissistic, and competitive world they live in.

Based upon what our children have so diligently learned from a Darwinian worldview, the best course of life is the survival of the fittest, the finest, the furtherest, the flirtiest, the most well-adapted, vigorous, able-bodied, myopic, narcissistic… regardless of the cost. Today’s culture of meritocracy, incivility, and “whateverness” is the perfect fulfillment of the Darwinian dream. In the same manner that we are fascinated by how The King of the Beasts takes out an Impala in the wild, we should be celebrating behaviors like bullying, incivility, disrespect, a “pants-down-’round-my-ankles” attitude! If… if… if it weren’t for so many of our youth dying… from the inside-out.

OUT with God, IN with Secular Humanism: In 1962, the Supreme Court removed prayer from school. In 1963 it removed the Bible, and in 1980 it removed the Ten Commandments from schools. By the slow yet unswerving progression of enlightenment philosophy (Proverbs 14:12; Isaiah 59:2; 2 Peter 2:20-22), and the poorly-conceived policies to carry it out, adults have stripped God from education and the culture and left the children—Image Bearers of God—to fend for themselves in a now-nearly-and-functionally godless society.

Based upon this country’s founding principles, public education was the place to continue to inculcate any child’s knowledge and practice of the Bible which he or she began to learn first in the home… before he or she was ever born. Generations of children have been orphaned to a secular humanistic worldview: “That man is the measure of all things. Man is the ultimate, autonomous norm; that is, he is a law unto himself. His reason, not subservient to divine revelation, is the basis of ethics (and all things).” (RC Sproul; Genesis 2:17; 2 Peter 2:1; Hebrews 11:6; 1 John 2:4—parenthesis added)

The implications of these historic events (removal of prayer, the Bible, the Ten Commandments) are indeed vast, and too many to chew on here and now. Suffice it to say that “it all fits”: “The naturalism that is taught alongside secular humanism makes humanity into a cosmic accident with no real value, hence the ease with which we abort children and abandon the elderly. Only the Christian worldview, where God is the measure of all things, can preserve life and liberty. Only those who believe that man is made in God’s image have grounds for attributing any kind of worth to humanity.” (RC Sproul)

Vladimir Lenin said, “Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.” Despair is the hallmark of millions of our youth within a wide range of ages, colors, creeds, etc! Despair is now the norm in the realms of pop jingles such as, “Don’t worry, be happy…” The only thing that trumps the volume of despair today are the wide array of medications, addictions, distractions, entertainments, etc… to suppress and compartmentalize it.

The emotional ambivalence created within the hearts of our youth (and culture) has unleashed untold chaos in the whole “ecosystem” of what it means to be human. And, by far, most every cure applied to mitigate the problem, any problem, is adding to it a hundred-fold: Especially since the basis for most every problem begins at a spiritual level—where most every “cure” these daze actually serves to supplant, and not serve to flourish anyone in any meaningful, deep, long-term way.

God has set aside The Church (supernatural and institutional) for the stewardship of the Bible. And the Western church has failed us in many ways as well. But having been so explicit by the removal of prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments, horribly misguided and selfish adults have abused our youth in convincing them that they—being such enlightened, evolved, and elitist beings—no longer need some anachronistic and outmoded form of identity: Communication with God, informed by His inspired Word, and freed to live in joyful obedience is now characterized as a form of Puritanical mental illness.

[As an important aside, using the bastardization of the “Jeffersonian Church-State” guideline, is not only an illegitimate use of Jefferson’s treatise regarding “no state shall institute or promote any religion”, but it’s become the atheist, cultural intelligencia’s “one stop shopping” for justifying stripping God out of the public (and soon private… RE: “thought crimes”, etc) square and culture. And our children are being fed on the pabulum of this sort of poisonous reasoning.]

OUT with the most creative, sacred, and protected place, IN with making a mother’s womb the most dangerous place on the planet: In 1973, Roe vs. Wade opened the floodgates for legalized abortion and infanticide. Even though there were millions of abortions prior to the landmark decision, “Roe v Wade” legitimatized, concretized, and, in many respects, “acculturated and celebrated” the previous two sea changes (anti-theistic evolution and extricating God from the culture) in our land. Today, in the hearts of NOT ONLY the most dear and vulnerable segment of our society, the children, but the future of the entire culture and Republic is based upon a worldview of “no safe and secure place… anywhere”… including a mother’s womb.

The monumental question of human origins, ultimate security, identity, worth, mothering, fathering, family, procreation, eschatology (final events of humankind), the basis upon which human advancement of any kind should be considered and carried out, should be placed in the context of infanticide as a mark of any culture’s ultimate degradation.

The priority of our unfettered sexual liberation (RE: bondage) has led to abortion as a contraceptive. This is an unspeakable crime of abject selfishness and just another knife wound at the heart of any child’s sense of worth, dignity, identity, as well as an encouragement to be desensitized to any and every form of human abasement.

And yet we insist that “choice transcends all things”. And there’s some irony here: Purely by God’s grace, we do have a choice: God can forgive any sin; but cannot forgive any sin—without the Holy Spirit, repentance, forgiveness, faith, and redemption (Mark 3:29; 1 John 1:9). The choice to love God and neighbor as self… or not… exists in the heart of Everyman.

The question for us is NOT ONLY whether an unborn child is a human being that has ultimate, intrinsic worth (Psalm 139) and inalienable rights, but what varied and complex messages it sends to the children that their value actually, really, for sure… extends far beyond being a mere inconvenience.

Is the impossible reasoning and the hypocrisy of this present-day behavior lost on our children’s perception of their value? Has teaching our youth to use their free will to do whatever the hell they please, while condemning them for doing so, been a factor in the development (or devolution) of their “mental faculties”? Maybe… Just maybe.

I too have participated in this selfishness and sin—so I know of what I speak.

If we, as a people, were on trial for convincing our children of their real worth, would there be enough evidence to convict us? So far, all the evidence of our orphaning our youth stands against us… in spades.

The Break-Up of the Traditional Family: God’s Design to Intervene, Redeem, Redirect—not doing so will always be catastrophic… Devoid of God’s boundaries, can evil be unleashed into a culture?

Does anyone find it ironic when the first words that come from many folks in response to a mass murder or any particularly egregious assault on humanity of any kind are, “This is simply evil!” I find this odd in a society that has largely assigned things like the devil, Satan, or evil to an antiquated, unenlightened, and crude view of life—commensurate to an antiquated, unenlightened, crude view that includes the God of the Bible. And, of course, when such a sound byte is recorded there is no in-depth discussion pursued about what exactly “evil” consists of… Why? Because any plausible discussion of evil must include it’s opposite: The God, the Good, Who as defeated it!

We have a sin and redemption problem that’s going unaddressed… The Minnesota Crime Commission concurs with the Bible and acknowledged that when it issued this report appointed by the governor back in 1926: “Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother’s attention, his playmate’s toys, his uncle’s watch, or whatever. Deny him these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He’s dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means that all children, not just certain children but all children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free rein to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.”

Wow! That will put a big dent in one’s self-esteem program, eh?

The apostle Paul stated it most clearly, “We are born into Sin (Genesis 3), and we sin (Romans 1:18-32)” (Romans 7:18; Jeremiah 17:9; Psalm 51:5).

As the numerous Bible passages above state so clearly (See: “For I have chosen him…), God’s design for the family is to intervene and raise up children under the admonition and love of God; to redeem the effects of inherited Sin and “everyday, habitual sin”; and to redirect an otherwise God-hating human being towards a God-loving and God-pleasing and people-blessing human being.

When the traditional, Biblical family nucleus, design, and purpose implodes, a child’s appropriate view of reality, themselves, and their role in society falls apart as well. It’s axiomatic. Divorce and family break-up inside and outside the church is now rampant. This does not spell utter doom for anyone involved because God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can heal and redeem any woundedness. But the repercussions of the dissolution of the traditional family go wide and deep.

Honestly, and with all the compassion I can muster, when folks who are considering divorce tell me, “I know it’s going to be hard on the kids, but their resilient. Don’t I deserve to be happy?” I want to scream and weep: Scream in hatred of the sin and selfishness (beginning first inside myself); and weep for the absolutely predictable harm divorce will do to the children, to the most vulnerable among us (and all other parties involved as well).

A Harvest of Poor Stewardship, Heartbreak, and A Cruel Irony… ONE such example.

Friday, November 2, 2012: “Campuses trying to improve civility… From University of Missouri to Penn State and Vanderbilt, colleges across the country are treating the erosion of common decency is a public health epidemic on par with measles outbreaks and sexually transmitted diseases. ‘What we’re trying to do is remind people of what they already know, to get back in touch with things they probably learned growing up’, said Noel English, who heads a new Missouri civility campaign called, ‘Show Me Respect’.” (St. Louis Post Dispatch)

PLEASE hear this: “What we’re trying to do is remind people of what they already know, to get back in touch with things they probably learned growing up.”

It is actually possible to remind someone of what they already know, if they never knew it? And have, in fact, been endlessly and thoroughly, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, and physically… not simply indoctrinated NOT to know it, but to hate it with all their being? And then, after any person doesn’t conform to the ideal behaviors they never knew, we shame them in direct and indirect ways! This is awful and a stench of self-indulgence and hypocrisy to God that is indescribable.

Yes, millions of children, young adults, adults… human beings… now HATE the very realms of Biblical and cultural authority meant to GUIDE and GUARD them because they have been so utterly abandoned and abused for so long by various authority figures and structures God put in place to help them flourish—and adults have abandoned in favor of their own, various, multiple, and endlessly creative lusts (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Do we have any idea of the impact this form of “sowing and reaping” is having in our hearts and land today? The answer on some level is “Yes. But it’s a dilemma so wide and so deep we can’t even discuss it. We must, therefore, suppress it.” (Romans 1:18)

Please think with me here: If, over the past 40+ years, we have repeated to ourselves and our youth in every realm of the culture possible,

- “You no longer have any need of God and the immeasurable array of His Love and Truth for your life;

- “You are an accident, born out of complete randomness, and will die with no legacy or identity beyond being food for worms;

- “You may have been born, or you may have been aborted, you just got lucky to survive your conception but please don’t take it personally or add any inconvenience to anyone now that you are born;

- “Should you ever have any regrets or mess-ups of any kind, just find someone or something to blame it on—after all, you’re not worthy of the time or discomfort of being held accountable and loved so much as to be encouraged to change;

- “You can and should have sex with anyone and anything at any time at any age for whatever reason your bodily cravings dictate or desire;

- “To help you deny that True Truth exists, there are an endless array of ways you can vent your emotions or share in other’s life and emotions voyeuristically—and that should help you stay well away from your own emotions, self-, or other-awareness;

- “And if you have any negative spiritual complications, emotional ambivalence, or mental disturbances (mostly resulting from the previous two spiritual and/or emotional problems) or associated with any of the above issues, learn how to compartmentalize, deny, distract, and/or medicate them like the rest of us do! You’re resilient and deserve to be happy… if not dazed or a dead man walking.”

Today, in virtually every way conceivable and inconceivable, we are training our youth, young adults to be nothing more than animals—and then criticizing them when they act like animals.

How could it be that we stand as public witnesses to the questions like, “Why are they so angry?” “I just don’t know why they are acting out this way?” “I’m shocked by how inconsiderate and self-centered they are!” “Geez, the kids today!”

Who exactly are we kidding? Our most sacred youth are going insane due to our unwarranted, unthrwated abuse and neglect of them. The irony is cruel indeed:

Grieving their loss as if they mattered beyond their last meritorious act; giving them the highest praise for things that will evaporate in the coming week; shaming them when the natural consequences of our godless upbringing come back to haunt them; providing the examples of the highest offices of virtually every institution as being as corrupt and unaccountable as could be; “fixing” (not) the most complex of problems by pitifully simplistic and totally unrelated cause- and-effect scenarios… And the list can go on and on and on.

In our day—with so few exceptions it’s hardly worth mentioning—every talking head or so much of the written word bemoans all the problems we are facing as affronts to our humanity; they offer solutions that are NOTHING but avoiding the core issues and providing political and pietistic cover while these very same persons or institutions, in the very same news conference or written piece, are condoning and celebrating a wide array of inhumane, ungodly, and murderous acts as being meritorious. E.g., advocating abortion from immediately after conception to the most brutal act of partial birth; an evolving “sanctity of death worldview and practice ” that will soon provide a parents the choice to abort an imperfect child or kill an aged or infirmed person who no longer has any utilitarian contribution to society; comparing and legislating the homosexual lifestyle to “equal rights or social equality protection”; educating our youth into imbecility; unfettered sexual behavior; protecting the right to produce and freely distribute pornography that even hell itself will find shocking; anti-theistic evolution; the production and protection of virtual games that dehumanize and desensitize the heart and soul every user over time; a growing cancer of gambling that offers hope where none exists; etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

In regards to the heart-breaking “the topic of the day” (the mass murder in Newtown, CT), and in light of the content above, please ask yourself a question, “Why are we not seeing far, far more chaos of this kind each and every day?” The answer is (at least) twofold:

First, in God’s mercy (Common Grace) He is withholding the natural consequences of our cultural “sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind”. God does not desire such as these to perish in this way. God does desire we turn back to Him—first and foremost—as The Answer, The Way, The Truth, The Life. We will experience unavoidable trials of various kinds as we live in a horribly broken world. And heart-shattering events of any kind can be used of God’s mercy to help turn us back to Him. He will “try” (God is sovereign) again and again until it’s too late (Revelations 21). Every trial can be used of God for Hos triumph and our blessing in our life… if we choose to do so.

Secondly, events of this kind are the tiny-tip-top portion of the iceberg of the existential and everyday angst, anger, and deep ambivalence of our youth who have been abandoned to all of the issues referenced above.

They are dying a slower death inside—compared to the speed of bullet, a syringe, a noose, a cutting or tattoo binge, a venereal disease, another “hook-up”, a worldview that is killing as sure as any mass murder we could ever dare imagine… And we’re NOT just refusing to see it for what it is; we are condoning and celebrating it each and every day.

God help us…

Devoid of a massive, culture-wide repentance and prolonged recapitulation of the aforementioned abandonment’s and insults of the God of the Bible… a wholesale revival… or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ… we are indeed lost as a culture and civilized people.

No person or institution can simply tamp down poor behavior by offering man-made incentives, further restrictions, or punishments. It’s a heart disease so deep and so egregious we ought to be weeping each day as we witness so many of our beloved youth dying from the inside out every day.

Please, Beloved of God, please consider in what realm of your life you might internalize these things, and re-commit to being a force of change for Good around God’s call in word and deed, and the Bible passages we looked at above, and again below.

There is absolutely an array of ways that God’s people can impact this issue right where each of us lives—beginning in our own home, our neighborhoods, our churches, our schools, the workplace… anywhere we live and breath and have our being and our obligations under grace to GUIDE and GUARD our precious children. Please remember, it always begins with The Church: “…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

The likelihood of “reversing the many curses” referenced above at a high, political, governmental, Constitutional, etc level is nil, nada, “forget about it!”. (Not to infer The Church should abandon being light and salt in those sorts of places.)

But, But, BUT… there’s plenty, way plenty of room for very big and very blessed things to happen in and through God’s people… beginning with you and me. This is, in fact, the main way God’s redeeming love and truth has prevailed in so many corrupt lives and cultures throughout all of history… beginning in my own heart:

“For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” (Genesis 18:19); “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them” (Deuteronomy 4:9); “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:7); “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 11:19); “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139); “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6); “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

In broken-hearted… respect, humility, urgency, and boldness,

JohnDoz