Kristy's comments

Go check out Kristy's comments at her blog. I enjoyed reading her comments. Thanks for posting, Kristy!

Favorite Quotes

I've been reading the first section of Noel Piper's book, printed off the internet. It really is wonderful, speeking first of all of the meaning and importance of traditions in the life of the Christ. Noel teaches that the point of traditions is to teach ourselves, remind ourselves, about God. A tradition is something that must be done regularly, repetitively, and it is a way of setting God before our eyes, of recalling Him and the things He has done to mind, and celebrating them. If you have children, then traditions are an important way to teach them the same things.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"We who are trusting Christ are the heirs of our Father, God. But what is the inheritance that we want from our Father? In this passage, Paul pictures us calling to him, "Abba! Father!" We are like children at the end of a long day. The only things we want is our abba, our daddy. The yearning of our hearts is for him. And that is the great treasure we inherit from our heavely Father--Himself." (p 15)

"In the book of Exodus, Moses displays his understanding of the nature of children and the responsibility of parents: 'And when your children say to you, "What do you mean by this service?" you shall say, "It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, for He passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt."'

Moses assumes children will ask why. And he instructs parents to give an answer that speaks of reality. This instruction is all in the context of laying our for children ceremonies that will portray the answer. He is giving them the answer, both spoken and displayed. And the answer is God--God saved us, and we honor Him, worship Him, thank Him. We and our children need this kind of yearly repetition to impress us with the weight of what God has done." (p 17)

"Things like that don't just happen. They come first from our own hearts that are tuned in to God. Then they happen because we plan to include our children in the God-air we breathe. Without planning, we'll practice our Bible memory just once or twice and then no more. We'll do lots of good things, but only a couple of times. [Man hasn't that been true in my life!] One of the great strengths of good traditions in our lives is the repetition--not something done once, then something else, then another thing altogether, but good things done regularly, dependably, until they become habits." (p 25)

"The things we do regularly that help us in our deepest being to know and love and want God, the things that help our lives to be infiltrated with God--those things are tradition. And then if there are children in our lives, to pass these God-focused activities to the next generation--that's what tradition is for a Christian." (p 25)

[Speaking of Pslam 78] "It’s easy to see, though, that the writer is not giving us a specific generation count. What he’s doing is looking so far backward and so far into the future that we know he means all generations of those who follow the God of Abraham. Of course, we
don’t know exactly how many generations have come before us, and we don’t know
how many generations will be born in the future. That’s not the point. Here’s the psalmist’s point: Beginning with God’s call of Abraham—the time when there began to be a particular people called “God’s people”—God commanded adults to teach the children. We are part of a millennia-long line, with the same command and responsibility to teach our children that the first generation had." (p 31)

All of this is helping to give me a greater reverance for the traditions that we engage in, and a sense of their importance, not just in our lives as a whole, but in our spiritual lives. I truly want to form traditions that will not just be fun, but teach our children the value and greatness of God.