“The child Samuel grew in favor both with the Lord and also with men” 1 Samuel 2:26.
How can we have children like that? Is there a way to guarantee your children will walk with God?
The short answer is “No, but…” That is, there is probably nothing godly parents can do to ensure their children never go astray. Some will rebel no matter what—and sometimes God will use that rebellion, as he did with Samson.
But in the Bible, God-fearing parents who pray and fast and wrestle deeply with God over their children, even unborn children, seem to see the best results. Abraham navigated an odyssey waiting until he was 100 to see Isaiah’s birth—and Isaiah was faithful. Jacob literally wrestled with God (Genesis 32:24-29) and fathered the twelve tribes. The parents of Moses allowed him to be raised in the Pharaoh’s palace, and their sacrifice paid off when their son delivered the Hebrews from slavery. Ruth lost her husband, father-in-law, and homeland, but God gave her a son Obed, grandfather of David.
And then comes Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Hannah was crushed over her barrenness, and begged God for a child. In a statement that makes me think of fasting, scripture reports, “she wept and could not eat” 1 Samuel 1:7. (God seems to particularly honor the prayers of a fasting parent.) Eventually Hannah vowed to dedicate to the Lord any son God might give her by bringing him to serve in the temple. And when God gave her a son, she fulfilled her vow. How many people do you know that would follow through? Most would say, “Oh, God knows I didn’t mean it.” But God takes vows seriously. So did Hannah—and he rewarded her for it, giving her three more sons and two daughters.
But Hannah had to surrender young Samuel into the care of Eli the priest, a man whose own child-rearing skills were deeply suspect. In fact, his sons were an abomination, disobeying God’s rules about the tithe by helping themselves to uncooked sacrificial meats, and by sleeping with women of ill repute.
“Therefore, the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord” 1 Samuel 2:17.
On top of the struggle of giving up a tiny son, I would have been deeply concerned about the influence of these much older sons of Eli. But God heard Hannah’s prayers, and I believe he rewarded her. And Samuel grew in favor with the Lord and with men. Samuel was nothing like Eli’s sons.
Finally, a word about genealogies. I recently noted that Ruth’s son Obed becomes an ancestor of the Messiah, because as God views it, the birth of a child is not the birth of a single man or woman, but the beginning of a line of men and women, a lineage that could last a thousand generations. In other words, God does not bless a single child, but he blesses the line of children to follow, the LINEAGE.
Similarly, sometimes God does not punish a single child, but he punishes the line of children to follow.
In the most obvious example, if a bad person dies before having children, an entire line is over before it begins. Or, as in the case of the permissive father Eli (see 1 Samuel 3:13) and his evil sons, God may not punish a single child, but the line of children to follow. “Behold, I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house … all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age” 1 Samuel 2:31,33.
The legacy of blessings for the line of obedient descendants and the legacy of punishments for the line of disobedient descendants indicate that God looks at our lives not as individual “singletons,” (the only acceptable view to independent-minded Americans) but as part of a line of ancestors and descendants. Your life is not just about you, but about the line of people who follow you.*
May God make us more like Hannah and Ruth: parents who pray, fast, and sacrifice for our children.
ΑΩ
- Some will rightly object that God expressly stated, “it will no longer be said, ‘the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.’ Instead, each will die for his own iniquity.” Jeremiah 31:29-30. This is but one of many such verses: Ezekiel 18:2-4, Deuteronomy 24:16, 2 Kings 14:6, and Ezekiel 18:19-20. It is true that God promises that “each will die for his own sin.” But many verses also indicate God deals with us as part of a family line. The key is grace. We live under a New Covenant, we walk in God’s grace, and we should not spend much time thinking about the sins of our ancestors–most of whom we cannot name and whose sins we do not know. I am speaking of God’s view of his children. God does not seem to view of us exactly the way we do–as detached individuals. He does not see us as disconnected “singletons,” but as members of families, tribes, and even a lineage. Even the body of Christ is described as “one body with many members.” We are always connected: to parents, to children, to a lineage, and to fellow believers. It is a beautiful mystery of love and grace and connection. But with that connection, I believe there remains some truth to this: obedience results in blessings for the generations that follow. And if that is true, the opposite is probably not false: disobedience may result in consequences for the generations that follow. As an example, consider the story of the descendants of Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards and notorious criminal Max Jukes. https://dadsdailydevotionals.com/2023/08/23/sowing-and-reaping-across-generations/
Household Words: 