Devotion #4- Traditions

 

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 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 6:4-7

 

During  this past Halloween I thought about my Dad taking me trick-o-treating while watching my four year old go door to door holding my husband's hand. At times she had to be carried when she saw a scary costume, a scary decoration, or a dog barking inside a house. I love how being a parent forces me to have a foot in the past and in the present all in the same moment.  I love looking back and remembering.

Remembering is Biblical as well. In Deuteronomy God through Moses told the Israelites to remember. The word remember is used something like sixteen times in the book of Deuteronomy. Feasts and celebrations were instituted just so the people would look back and remember God's faithfulness and mercy to them over the years. He is still calling us to remember Him today. Sometimes when the present seems uncertain and lacking hope, if we will look back and remember the past and God's unfailing deliverance, we can face the present and the future. We will find the strength to go forward.

Traditions can help us do just that- remember God and all He has done for us.  As a parent of two little ones I think about traditions quite a bit. What traditions from my family growing up do I want to continue? Which new traditions do I want to begin with my family? As a Mom it is especially easy to get caught up in holiday traditions and make them something stressful.  If all the activity gets in the way of remembering then maybe the tradition needs to be scaled back or eliminated all together.  I don't want my girls to say, " I remember at our house mom stressing out about the turkey at Thanksgiving and yelling at us every December in order to get the perfect Christmas card picture." That would be so sad to me. The traditions we choose must be meaningful and purposeful.

The big seasonal memory making traditions can crowd out the simple everyday traditions. There is power in the simple. Somehow the simple slips into our busy over-filled lives and causes us to pause and take notice.  What if we focused more on daily God honoring traditions like a family devotion time or making family prayer a priority? Ultimately, the most important tradition that needs to be passed down from generation to generation is the knowledge of how to have a personal relationship with Christ and how much He loves us. The relationship we model with our Savior will be the legacy that will last for generations. It will be the tradition that stands the test of time and lasts for eternity. In the end how beautiful and perfect our family looks on the Christmas card this year in their matching seasonal attire and big happy smiles is not going to matter one little bit.