As we journey on this theme of Kingdom Parenting, there are so many angles that we can draw from. What really excites me is when we were working with Jubilee, they challenged us to find out our core vales as a church. The elders and pastors were each given yellow sticky notes, and we wrote down who we thought Lifespring is. Then we compiled it together, we got the acronym IMPACT. The letter P is Parenting. After all these years, the new generation of leaders discerned that our theme this year is Kingdom Parenting. This is so encouraging that God is speaking to us. Andrew’s last devotion “Same God, Different Me” reminded us that God never changes. A new generation of leaders arise but its the same God that directs.
Drawing from Exodus 20:8-9:
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
As I was preparing the message, The Lord brought to mind the time when we first emigrated to Canada in the eighties. My parents and uncles came as business immigrants and we were given 6 months to start the restaurant business.
We were so new and very unaware of the business climate and not knowing the city very well. So, we started the business in the heart of little Italy. The business was so dead in the first two months. My grandma insisted that we would not open the restaurant on Sundays. She wanted to Honour the Lord, and she wanted Sunday be a day of rest and that we will all go to church. Many in the family protested. She was really the main chef, and we had no choice to go along with her.
Two months into opening the business, on a Saturday, the phone started ringing and people were making reservations. This has never happened in the first two months. My dad, ask how did you hear about the restaurant? Then they told him, that the restaurant was featured in the Globe and Mail that day. The business started to boom. Now I realized that God honoured my grandma for keeping Him First, and she kept the Sabbath Holy. In her later years, she would tell me stories about her younger days, as a young mom, she would take care of her children, and tapped rubber in the night. Her Father in law, suggested to her to take Sunday off as see what God would do. She testified that she had more latex in 6 days than those working 7 days.
My grandma was encouraged by her father in law to experienced God’s word by keeping the Sabbath Holy, and God honoured her. Her actions impacted us till today. As parents, when we obey God’s Word, it will be a blessing to the future generations.
Lord, help us to live out your word, so that it will transform us and the future generations.