The teaching of the wise is
a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death~
Proverbs 13:14 NIV
Early last fall, my son Alex brought home a
rather weird surprise: a teeny, tiny lizard we promptly named Larry. Larry was
no bigger than a quarter and super cute (for a reptile). Larry was captured when
he made the rather reckless decision to hitch a ride on Alex’s pant-leg as he
was walking home. I am not generally a fan of lizards but this little guy was
so lively and endearing that even I was taken with him.
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| Sweet little Larry, clawing at the glass |
Then
we had to decide what to do with him. I have a firm no-reptiles-in-the-house
policy, so keeping him inside was out of the question. After much debate and
discussion we decided to release Larry into our back yard. It felt like a
decent solution; Larry was free to do his lizard thing out in the wild where he
belonged and we still got to see him from time to time.
Everything was good until Larry discovered
the swimming pool. Pools are a huge temptation for lizards. It’s easy for them
to get in and they love the water. It’s all fun and games until their
cold-blooded bodies adjust to the cooler temperature of the water. Then they become
sluggish and too weak to escape. Unless a kind-hearted human comes along to
fish them out they inevitably drown.
Larry loved the pool. The first few times
we found him in it, he appeared to be drunk with pleasure at having found his
own private oasis in the desert. That is, until the fateful morning I found him
well, um, floating. As I fished little Larry out of the pool for the last time
it occurred to me that Larry needed an Ichabod in his life.
Ichabod is the name I have given to the
lizard that lives in our front yard. He is really big, very old, and extremely
ugly. He’s lost his tail so many times that it has grown back crooked, thus the
name Ichabod, which means “The glory has departed.” Ichabod may be ugly but he
is also wise and very clever. He spends most of his days in the tree in my
front yard, where he has an ample supply of bugs to eat and is well camouflaged
from predators. He steers clear of the pool, preferring to get his water from
the drip irrigation. He is very wary of
humans; you would never catch Ichabod attempting to hitch a ride on a pant leg.
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| A rare sighting of Ichabod |
The other day as I was leaving the house I
caught a rare glimpse of old Ichabod lumbering toward his tree. It got me
thinking about the importance of passing on insight and wisdom to future
generations. Like little Larry, many young people in our culture are in danger
of being sucked in by alluring temptations and ideas that appear to be a sweet
deal but in reality are deadly snares.
The Bible speaks about the necessity of mentoring,
or of older Christians passing on truth regarding life and faith to younger
believers (Deuteronomy 6, Proverbs 1-7, 1st Timothy 6:11-12,Titus 2)
and yet such mentoring has become more and more of a rarity in churches and
even families. There are some practical explanations for this reality. We live
in a busy world. Carving out time for relationships is difficult. Older
believers often feel unqualified to offer advice and are reluctant to do so. Our
churches are frequently segregated in such a way that the generations rarely
cross paths.
Practical explanations aside, there are
other factors that play a part in our lack of intergenerational communication. Younger
believers can be stubbornly certain that they have life all figured out and
often bristle at even the most gently offered counsel of older Christians. On
the other hand, mature believers can be, well, cantankerous and intolerant at
times. It’s easy to forget that we too were once young and smugly certain that
we were right and the older generation was out of touch.
Much has been written on the subjects of
cultural transformation and the need to bring Millennials back into the church;
I am convinced that friendship is the key to turning things around. Building
relationships can be challenging. It requires an intentional effort on the part
of the older generation. We have to be the ones to make the first move. The
burden for fixing the mess we’re in is on the forty and older crowd.
I have learned from experience that one of
the issues that can make intergenerational friendships challenging is the level
of insight that young Christians have. They can spot someone who views them as
a project and will flee from anyone who is not really interested in authentic
friendship. Young people are skilled at identifying legalistic junk. Older
Christians who want to mentor must be willing to sort out which of their
standards and beliefs are cultural and which are biblical. We must cling persistently
to the biblical and willingly discard the cultural.
Older
believers must stick to modeling and teaching the stuff that really matters.
Such as the need for discernment when it comes to entertainment and worldview,
the importance of preserving family, the art of applying biblical principles to
real-life situations and—perhaps most importantly—we need to model spiritual
discipline and teach young people how to provide their own spiritual food.
As
I watched old Ichabod lumber off my front porch I was reminded of the older
Christians who have guided me through my journey. I thought of a wise older
woman named Teresa who taught me that parents who have fun with their kids are more
likely to keep them on the right path. I thought of Jim, a Bible teacher whose giftedness
and love of Scripture inspired my own passion to teach and Sheila whose
stubborn confidence in the power of prayer has inspired me to pray for
situations that appeared on the surface to be hopeless.
My Mother-in-law also came to mind; her
sincere esteem for her husband helped me to understand the role that respect
plays in lasting marriages. I thought of Sharon, a godly older woman who saw
leadership qualities in me long before anyone else did and helped me to refine
them.
I took
a moment and thanked God for the saints who have faithfully demonstrated truth
in season and out of season and for those who were bold enough to firmly but
lovingly set me straight when the need arose. I am deeply indebted to those men
and women and I pray that their tribe will increase.
Since
my youth, God, you have taught me, and
to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I
declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to
come~ Psalm 71:17-18 NIV
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