Generational amnesia

Time passes so quickly. One generation dies and another carries on. It's amazing to see how fast life passes and how quickly legacies are forgotten.

My wife took this photo last week of our newest grandchild, Vaughn. We have a similar photo of Vaugh's dad in my lap at this same age. (Although in the earlier photo I still had hair.) I'm amazed at how quickly one generation carries on from the next and how easily we fail to pass on what we learned in our own lives.

I just finished reading the book of Joshua this morning and it finishes with these words, "Israel served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the LORD had done for Israel." What it hints at and will make clear in the next book, Judges, is that we have a really bad habit of not passing on what we have learned, what we have seen and what the Lord has taught us, and so the next generation doesn't remember what God has done because we didn't tell them. We create generational amnesia. I have thought about this a lot as I have watched the grandchildren come along. What will they know? Who will tell them about the God I love if I don't? The books of Joshua and Judges are great reminders of how easily we lose this amazing message, how quickly the next generation abandons God. When we fail to tell them all that God has done in our lives we produce a generation that does not know God because we didn't tell them.