Tell the stories!

"Then (He) commanded our parents to teach it to their children. So the next generation would know, and all the generations to come - know the truth and tell the stories so their children can trust in God."

(Psalm 78:5-7)

I love stories! In college I started collecting children's books - long before I had any children of my own. I was a theatre major as my undergraduate degree - creating stories that engaged an audience was what we did! Now, as a pastor, I'm still telling stories in creative and compelling ways. I firmly believed that we humans are "hard-wired" towards story. We gravitate towards compelling stories.

As I was reading Psalm 78 today, I encountered a wonderful phrase: "Know the truth and tell the stories..." It's instructions to parents so their children can come to the faith and trust in God. I've heard more than one person say, "I don't want to FORCE my child to believe in God. I want them to be able to choose for themselves." Usually that follows as justification as to why they don't take their children to church. In theory, that sounds very reasonable (wanting our children to choose for themselves). However, we don't think that way about school. We think school is important enough that our children attend for a certain number of years (K-12, usually), then they can choose to go to college and grad school. Likewise, we should take our children to church and teach them about God, so when they get older, they'll be able to decide whether or not they want to continue in that lifestyle (see "Confirmation").

That's what I love about this phrase in Psalm 78: "Know the truth and tell the stories." What a great mantra for us today. Know the truth and tell stories. Tell them to our children so they can trust in God. So they can share in the joy of a relationship with the Creator. So they can lean on God whenever hard times come (and they will come... to all of us!). So they can gain their own identity from God, not from others.

Know the truth and tell the stories. Word.