Passing It On

We will not conceal them from our children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done. Psalm 78:4  NASB

Not conceal– What parent would even hide something vitally important and beneficial from a child?  Actually, nearly all parents.  You see, the culture of origin that does not worship the King and pass His instructions to its children essentially deprives those children of life’s most valuable treasure.  Even worse, those parents sign the death warrant for their children, relegating them to lives of confusion and emptiness, vain hopes and shattered dreams.  Why, oh why would any parent do such a thing?  The answer is a tangled simplicity.  A sinful lack of true perspective.  If I believe that life is about me, my goals, my dreams and my efforts, then my reach will not exceed my grasp and I will be locked in the labyrinth of the yetzer ha’ra.  I can still achieve great things, but they will be straw before the Throne.  Unless I see that life, my life, is about God and His purposes, I will have no urgency to share this bigger-than-me vision with my children.  As a result, they will have no bigger-than-me vision of their own existence.  I will have accidentally concealed from them the one thing that lifts human perspective beyond feet treading the path—God’s glory.

I think about my daughter.  She is a grown woman now, but I remember those days when she was very little, rambunctious, curious, precocious.  I remember the moment she was born as if it were yesterday, only better.  When I read David, I also remember the heartache of not adequately revealing the glory of the Lord to this precious person.  I drifted through the malaise of success, the pointlessness of prosperity, and the emptiness of a life preoccupied with myself.  All that time I claimed to be a Christian, a devotee without discipline, an adherent of religious persuasion without transforming conviction.  What did I teach my daughter?  That life is about how I feel, what I want, how hard I work.  I didn’t point her to the glory beyond me, the reason for being in the world.  Perhaps she will forgive me—and look for the things I concealed in ignorant myopia.

“We will not conceal,” says David.  This is not simply an individual’s affirmation.  David speaks for an entire people, a culture of revelation. The verb is kahad.  It means to keep something back, to refuse to make something known.  Notice that this verb has a prefixed Nun.  That changes the meaning from a declarative command to a performative request.  “We will please not conceal.”  It is a deliberate choice, not an accidental byproduct of culture.  God does not hide.  If we seek Him, we will find Him.  For this reason, He sends His messengers.  The Hebraic worldview is the worldview of the prophets, those called by God to show His people who He is and what He demands.  The greatest gift I could give my daughter is a sense of the prophetic moment placed in her hands: the awe of being alive, the mystery of God’s ultimate purposes, and the invitation to be involved.  These things I wish for her today and every day for the rest of my life.  Perhaps it is not too late.

Topical Index:  not conceal, lo nekahed, Psalm 78:4