We sat in the old farmhouse dining room, around the table where my mom had hosted generations of family. And we divvied up the old pictures, bits and pieces of written history, and trinkets of her life well lived.
Someday, my children will do the same. The china, the pictures, and the stuff which seems important to me now, will look like…well, mostly like junk. And they will wonder, why did she save this? What in the world do we do with all this stuff?
I can almost hear the conversation, “I don’t want it, you take it!”
“I don’t even know who this is,” they will comment as they finger black and white photos.
So, what happens to the piles of clothing, the half set of real silverware, or the outdated rocking chair nobody wants?
Generations. Most of us are passionate about passing down the Biblical values of our generation with its benefits and memories to the next. Scripture provides a mandate to do so, and God places great importance on it.
But, what if someone decides they don’t want that old delicate china or the patchwork quilt which has been in the family years and years? It’s dowdy, out of date, and incongruent with their lifestyle. It’s so old-fashioned.
And, what if we aren’t talking just about the stuff, what if we are talking about faith, morality, and values? Suppose that also gets tossed away onto a pile of junk?
Recently, I’ve experienced a virtual wave of younger friends using social media to bombast beliefs they once embraced. Even sometimes, in an older generation, I find an apathy, spiritual coldness, and some tossing it all away.
Kinda like throwing the fine china against the wall.
A process of shedding church “hurt and judgement” which is dumped bitterly into the laps of family, friends, and community, weakens foundations and creates new offenses. Offenses do not necessarily place the one wronged in the right.
If belittlement, vitriol, and abandonment are meant to punish the Church, we need to humbly remember, the Church isn’t a building, denomination, or a religion. It’s a people bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. It’s a body who belongs to Him because He is its Savior.
We may scratch our heads in wonder at what happened to someone’s evaporated belief system, but Jesus predicted, exposed, and pointed out hypocrisy from which it’s fed. He warned about savage wolves within His flock, and specifically that many will turn from faith in the end times. (Acts 20:29).
As I’ve been pondering on the posts of people who have moved on to reject what they once held dear, I remember one of the parables Jesus taught.
While the main point of the parable of the sower and the seed illustrated different responses to the gospel of salvation, its principles stop my knee-jerk reaction.
Because I too must check the soil of my soul.
The seed of God’s Word planted in our hearts finds a type of soil and the kind of nurturing which makes for a long-haul faith or a quick burn.
In the first example, the sower scattered the gospel on hard ground. Birds came and ate the seeds. How difficult for God’s Word to penetrate into the very recesses of our beings when our hearts are hard toward Him.
The second soil was rocky, making it too shallow for deep roots. That person joyfully received the Word, but when trials came he quickly stumbled. Lazy apathy, not watering deeply, or just going through the motions, leaves us with a superficial faith.
The third seeds fell on thorny soil. Cares of the world, trials, and the pursuit of riches, overtook and choked out God’s truths. Demands and needs of life draw away or push us toward Christ.
But, the fourth fell on good soil. It not only took root and thrived, it reproduced. (Matthew 13:3-9)
God’s Word, nurtured with the soft fertile soil of a humble heart, watered with consistency, given proper respect and authority, flourishes. It reproduces.
Sometimes I feel the deep loss, worry, and shame of those anti-evangelists of Jesus, who declare life better without Him. But such declarations should always lift my eyes to Christ. They should remind me of the soil of my own soul.
“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them,” Paul instructed in 1 Timothy 4:16 (NIV).
There are people we can blame, institutes we can fault, and family we can criticize for the path we or someone we love takes. Which is why we need to be reminded daily of the gospel, for Jesus died that we might live.
Much more precious than fine china, we need the Word of God to teach us, train our hearts, and move our spirits toward Him. We need to tend the soil of our souls so it will reproduce the unshakable truth of the gospel throughout the whole world.
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