Whenever I read Psalm 78 I think of my mother. She did what this Psalm says parents should do. Listen to verses 3-7, “What we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done...he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.”
My mother never went to school in her life, but she knew Jesus as her Savior and Lord from the time she was sixteen. She had a very rough life as a child. When she trusted in Christ, her mother threatened her with her life. She experienced painful persecution. But God wonderfully sustained her.
She shared many of her “faith stories” with us as children. As we married and had children, she made time and created suitable settings to share her faith stories with her grandchildren. Before she died at age 86 she had the joy of doing the same with her great grandchildren.
When given a Bible after her baptism as a teen, she realized she would need to learn how to read. She prayed that God would teach her, and He did, without help from others. She knew the Bible well, and shared what she knew with her family. Most importantly, she lived what she knew in the nitty-gritty circumstances of daily life.
I am so thankful for the way she lived out Psalm 78. Her example indelibly impacted my life to be the father, grandfather and great-grandfather God wants me to be.
