Fight for Your Family Future

Fight for Your Family

Future

My Great Grandmother Frannie Frye

So what does it mean to train up a child in the way he should go?  Proverbs 22:6

Only God can see the future

The God who says

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

We cannot know the future but we can know the One who holds the future

Maybe the answer is found in a picture taken in 1948 of an elderly women

Who has lived out most of her life

A mother reading the Bible to know God

A mother who passed on her greatest gift and joy

It wasn’t her Bible passed down through the generations

It was her relationship with her Lord and Savior

Future

The other day my Aunt Alice

text me a picture

of my Great Grandmother,

Fannie Frye, the picture was dated 1948.

Sitting beside her are three picture

frames of her adult grandchildren.

The one on the left is a picture of my Aunt

Alice, the one in the middle is my Aunt Doris

 And the one on the right is my Dad.

In her lap is an open Bible she is reading.

 This picture was taken 5 years

before I was born in 1953.

Fannie I. Frye

April 15, 1882 – November 6, 1956

My Aunt Alice also text me two more pictures.

 One of my Great Grandmother and Great

Grandfather Frye, when they were very young.

The other picture was my Grandmother

and Grandfather on their wedding day and

Dr. Griffith, Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist

Church who officiated the marriage.

I don’t mean to bore you with my

family tree, but demonstrate the future.

These pictures from my point

of view reveal my history.

 But from my Great Grandmother’s

and Great Grandfather’s view as

young people sitting next to each other

in the picture, a view into their future.

Although it seems so long ago Sandy and

I were a young couple with no children…

We now have 3 children and 7 grandchildren.

In 70 years our great grandchildren

will be looking at pictures of us.

Maybe they will never remember seeing us

and only have stories of our children,

their parents and grandparents.

Yes, the future will come.

It has in the past and it will in the future.

When we fight for our families,

we are fighting for their future.

The battles and fights we are

in are bigger than the moment.

Bringing a baby into the world is a great joy.

Watching them grow and learn

can bring great satisfaction.

Parenting is a lot about us.

We want our children to bring us glory and honor.

But we should not let the cart get before the horse.

Our job as parents is to fight for the family’s future.

The baby brought into the world today has a future.

What is that future?

What is the parent’s responsibility?

As young parents, Sandy

and I parented in the moment.

We did the things that we

thought were best at the time.

 As I look back, I wish I could start our

family with the knowledge I have now.

I also thank God we cannot have

children in our old age…

As I may have a lot more knowledge,

 but not the energy or patience.

  But if I could start over I would make the

vision of future the focus of parenting…

Keeping the end in mind.

But what does that look like?

Simply stated…

The baby developing in the mother’s

womb is a work of God’s hands.

The future of every baby is to

be all God has created them to be.

The future will come despite how much

we try to hang on to the little child.

They will become the future

and they will become history.

So what does it mean…

 To train up a child in the way he should go?  

Proverbs 22:6

Only God can see the future.

The God who says…

For I know the plans I have for you,"

declares the LORD,

"plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

We cannot know the future but we can

know the One who holds the future.

Maybe the answer is found in a picture

taken in 1948 of an elderly women

who has lived out most of her life.

A mother reading the Bible to know God.

A mother who passed on her greatest gift and joy.

It wasn’t her Bible passed down through the generations.

It was her relationship with her Lord and Savior.

You see my Great Grandmother passed on

to my Grandmother and my Grandmother

to my Father and my Father to me,

 the knowledge of the living God.

Although none of them could tell the future…

 They pointed me to the One who holds the future.

The One who has a plan for my life from beginning to end.

Fight for your family to know God.

Because in knowing the Lord we can know the way.

The steps of a good man are ordered by

the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

Psalm 37:23 KJV

Never lose sight of the future.

Let the future determine your moments.

The only future that counts is the future

of Eternal Life with our Heavenly Father.

 

What will your pictures reveal in 70

years to your great grandchildren?

We will not last in this world

but Jesus will last forever.

Fight for Jesus to be in the lives of your family.

It is the greatest treasure you can pass on.

Scripture Reading

Nehemiah 4:16-18 NIV

16 From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah 17 who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.