Godly Heritage

But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:14, 15 -NKJV)


One of my hobbies is genealogy. It started with my maternal grandmother who loved to tell family stories. I could sit for hours as a child listening. When I grew older I started writing down the stories and searching out facts from exaggerations. Nearly a half century later I'm still filling notebooks and taking care to pass the stories down to my daughters the way my grandmother passed them on to me.

I can't begin to express the excitement I felt a few years ago when a thick manila envelope from the United States War Department Archives of Pension Records arrived. Grandma always told us her grandfather had served in the Union Cavalry during the Civil War. My fingers tingled and my heart nearly skipped a beat as I opened the envelope and began reading photocopies of my great grandfather's actual service records.

Do I get as excited about my spiritual heritage? Do my daughters know that I cherish God as an ever present friend who is always there for me in good times and in bad? Am I teaching them about the heroes of the faith who have gone before? Heroes from Scripture as well as church history? Could someone admonish them to "continue in the things which you have learned" the way Paul admonished Timothy?

Heavenly Father: keep me faithful in passing on a godly heritage to the next generation.