Following On

Who are you? What kind of family do you come from? What did you learn from that family about doing what is right?

Truth is, you learned your place in the world by listening to the stories your family told: stories about grandpa going to the war, or about mom adopting a stray kitten that needed help. From those stories you learned your place in the family and how to live up to family expectations.

Author John Farrier tells about how his family would celebrate “Big Sandwich Night.” Farrier writes, “When I was a child, my dad made up a fake holiday called Big Sandwich Night that fell on the weekend after Thanksgiving.” On Big Sandwich Night, Dad would buy the longest piece of bread he could find and then they would make it into a sandwich as a family. Each person had final say over one part of the sandwich. They would get really creative about the kinds of vegetables or sauces they put on the sandwich. It was a great holiday.

Ferrier believed that every family in America celebrated Big Sandwich Night. When he was eight, he asked one of his friends at school what his family was going to do for Big Sandwich Night. The friend looked at him in astonishment. “What are you talking about? There’s no such thing as big sandwich night.” This wasn’t a tradition for every family, just John’s family, and it became one of the stories he passed down that defined the kind of person he would become.

In Psalms 78:3 Asaph writes, “What our fathers have told us … [so] we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done … [Then] the next generation will know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn will tell their children [that] they may put their trust in God and not forget his deeds”

We teach the next generation to live godly lives of good purpose by passing on the stories recorded in the Bible. By telling about prophets and apostles from 2000 years ago, we teach our children to live lives of discipline and honor. Do for your children what Asaph did for his— by “telling the next generation the deeds of the Lord and the wonders he has done.”