Repeat Them Again

You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:5-9

MOSES WAS STANDING at the edge of the Promised Land with God’s people. He wouldn’t be entering with them, so he was telling them everything they needed to know to live well in the land God was giving them. He reiterated the Ten Commandments that God had written on stone tablets forty years before, when most of those standing with him were children or hadn’t yet been born.

The weight and wisdom of Moses’ instructions echo through the centuries to us today. Moses was calling on parents to talk to their children about how God had saved them from slavery in Egypt and had given them his loving law to live by when they sat around the table, when they traveled, at bedtime, and in the morning. In other words, the grace of God as well as the law of God were to be authentic parts of their conversation throughout the day, in every place and situation. Since they were people whose souls had been shaped by the deliverance of God and whose lifestyle was being shaped by the law of God, it would be only natural that these truths would shape their conversations with their children.

But it’s not always natural for us, is it? We fear letting our kids see our weaknesses, our neediness, our failures. Yet this great parenting passage is not telling us how good we must be at parenting or anything else. Instead, it reminds us how real we must be about our need for Jesus.

Lord, this passage seems to condemn me from the start because I do not love you with all my heart, soul, and strength. But I want to. I haven’t been wholeheartedly committed to your commands or made them a consistent part of my daily conversation with ________. Lord, loosen my tongue with ________ to speak about my need for your grace and forgiveness, as well as my confidence that you supply both to me.