Your family is no accident but God’s good plan

For a mom keeping many plates spinning every day, it can be easy for the daily demands to close in on my heart and mind. I can feel small. I can forget the bigger story God is telling through me and my family – yes, even my family. Ray and Jani Ortlund have experienced family life with lots of spinning plates! Now they have written two new books – one for adults, the other for children – to encourage our hearts with how much we actually matter, far into the future. Ray and Jani are some of my most favourite people — people who have discipled me and mentored me through their lovely letters and cruciform leadership. It’s a true joy and honour to welcome Ray and Jani to the farm’s table today…

Guest post by Ray and Jani Ortlund

You are a person of historic significance. God thinks so.

His plan for world history includes you. In fact, he “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). How can that not include you?

And if it includes you, doesn’t it include your family too?

You and your marriage and your children are no accident – including that “surprise” baby you didn’t budget for! (We have one of those!) God has a thrilling purpose for your family, a purpose that extends long into the future.

We’d like to get you thinking bigger thoughts about yourself and your family’s place in God’s plan. Bigger thoughts grow bigger faith. And your faith will change the story your life will tell for generations to come.

“…your faith will change the story your life will tell for generations to come.“

For us, long-term thinking about our family was a big change. Thinking two weeks ahead, even two years ahead – we knew something about that. But thinking out, say, two hundred years? Those were completely unexplored thoughts!

Here is what opened our eyes. Years ago, Jani was reading her Bible . . .

. . . just enjoying my morning devotions – reading in Deuteronomy, no less – when something leapt off the page at me:

 “No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the   tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD” (Deut. 23:2).

“If God excluded certain people to the tenth generation, how much more does he long to include people to the tenth generation!”

Whoa, I thought. That’s serious! God excluding a family line from his presence? For ten generations? How does that make sense? If every page of the Bible, from cover to cover, is ultimately meant to show us Jesus and his gospel, what part of the good news was I supposed to see in this?

Whatever else is going on in this Old Testament passage, it must be preparing us for the assurance of the New Testament, that in Jesus alone, we who do not deserve to stand before a holy God have been invited and welcomed into his presence (Acts 11:17-18; Gal. 2:15-16).

Oh, my, the thoughts were swirling in my mind now. I was asking the Lord for help to see his heart more clearly. That’s when a new thought occurred to me: “If God excluded certain people to the tenth generation, how much more does he long to include people to the tenth generation!”

Doesn’t he always delight more to bless than curse, to receive than reject, to welcome than banish? Yes. Much, much more!

And if, back in Deuteronomy, God banned their descendants “to the tenth generation,” how might the how-much-more heart of God bless our family, and your family, to the tenth generation?

The generational blessing of God, stretching out over our family into the distant future, left us breathless – more excited, and more responsible.

More excited? Yes! We started thinking about our family in expanded dimensions, beyond the children and grandchildren we know and love right now.

More responsible? Yes! We began daring to pray more boldly, asking the Lord to bless our family to the tenth generation.

“God is advancing his own mission, and we just want to be involved... Could we live for any cause more worthy and more certain of success?“

And if a generation comes of age every twenty years or so, we’re now praying that every one of our descendants will love the Lord Jesus Christ for the next two hundred years!

Sometimes this vision for our family feels crazy even to us. But then we remember, God himself has been preparing us for this mission our whole lives. We are preapproved by his grace to “go for it” – in prayer, in purpose. We therefore accept responsibility to be flow-through-able as parents and grandparents, inspiring our future generations to stand for Christ.

Not that we are advancing God’s mission. God is advancing his own mission, and we just want to be involved. He sees our hearts. And he sees your heart. He knows how it works best for each of us. Let’s all keep saying yes to whatever he asks us to do. Could we live for any cause more worthy and more certain of success?

The encouraging fact is this. The risen Jesus is sprinting through our world today, right now, at this very moment, saving people right and left. He’s not tired, and he’s not making it up as he goes. In eternity past he resolved upon this sacred commitment: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off” (Acts 2:39). Our mighty Christ is why we aren’t wringing our hands and moaning, “What’s the world coming to?” Instead, we are rejoicing and declaring, “Look who has come to the world!”

So here is the biblical and audacious belief we are inviting you to embrace:            

God gave you your precious family

to play a crucial role in his strategy

for the redemption of the world.

And it can start so simply – with a prayer like this:

Lord, I’m afraid for my family.

In this world there is so much against us.

But I look to you.

Your kingdom come, your will be done,

both in me and in my family,

to the tenth generation.

In the holy name of Christ.

Amen.

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