Parenting has gone through many cycles, from giving children total freedom to imposing strict limits and rules on everything from bedtimes to driving to screen time. We parents sometimes think the kindest thing we can do for our children is to let them have whatever they want. Only later do we find out that our children want both rules and structure while we are there to help them in making good decisions.
Back in Exodus 18:19-20, something caught my eye as a parent. We read about Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, who gave him some common sense advice about overwork and delegation. We usually come away from this section of Scripture remembering that old Jethro recommended teamwork in order to spare Moses from burnout. But first Jethro begins with the people themselves: “Teach them God’s decrees and instructions and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave,” he advises. If you start by carefully bringing up people (children?) to have good character and to be conscious of choosing righteousness in every aspect of life, there won’t be so many disputes that need adjudicating!
In our Deuteronomy passage above, Moses presses into this idea of the careful, righteous life in making a good future possible for all God’s people. He retells their recent history of wandering in the wilderness and teaches the people to examine what God was doing in them and with them all that time. Moses asks them to remember the way their character and choices were tested by God. Remember, he says, that we were all dependent on God for the simplest things of life, food and clothing, and He always provided, leading us to become dependent on Him and on His word. God has been loving us, disciplining us, and raising us to be faithful people of good character, in the way that a loving father raises his children. Another reference to parenting there!
Most of us are grown people now. We have some life history to look back on. How do we view our past life with God? Like Joseph, we may view the tragic reversals of our lives as having brought us, step by step, to the very place God wanted us to be. Like Moses, we may look back on our lives with God as having prepared us—body, soul, and mind—to be strong and faithful people, ready to face the challenges ahead. When you look back over the course of your life, what are your high and low points? What have you learned about yourself and about God along the way? What were your turning points, places where you found new insight about yourself and about God? How has God been working in you to create good character and faithfulness? For what future is God preparing you now?