Psalm 48:13: “Go through her palaces, that you may tell it to the next generation.”
Observation: This wonderful psalm of praise and thanksgiving ends with this: “We have thought on Your lovingkindness, O God. . . . So is Your praise to the ends of the earth. . . Walk about Zion and go around her; count her towers; consider her ramparts; go through her palaces, that you may tell it to the next generation. For such is God, our God forever and ever; He will guide us until death” (Psalm 48:9–14).
Application: I can draw from this a great lesson as to how to raise children. Think about Jerusalem: so magnificent, yet her ordeals have been enormous. She has gone through repeated judgments because of her apostasy; she has been held captive by Babylon, her palaces burned and her walls destroyed. And yet by God’s hand she has been made so resplendent that all who look upon her will testify to the next generation of God’s goodness and greatness.
It should be the same with my family. God has been with me through each deep valley. At those points where oppression has seemed so great I thought I might never draw another breath, He has brought relief, restoring joy where once was only mourning and dread. He has been patient in my times of rebellion and shallowness of faith. He has seen my woundings, and wept. But He has also lifted and restored me. He has shown me how to put roots down deep into His marvelous love, and He promises to guide me until death.
What a story I have to tell to the next generation! The point of the story isn’t how deep the valley was, but His faithfulness in meeting me there. The heart of my message isn’t how glorious were the mountaintops, but rather His greatness and mercy that got me there. His is my story! It is in Him that I exult. It is His story in my life that I ought to tell the next generation so as to set a marker of God’s hand in our lives, in our family. All too often I talk about the valleys and mountaintops themselves but if that’s the focus of what the next generation hears, they will have missed the point of the story!
Prayer: Father God, Your hand has been profoundly evident in the lives of my family and me. Stir me; remind me, when remembering our story, to focus on Your involvement at every turn. It’s not about us, Lord; it’s about You. I ask You to redeem the time, to give me more opportunity to intentionally tell the next generation of Your faithfulness in the midst of our history.