Passing Wisdom Across Generations

Many have made the observation that a midget standing on the shoulders of a giant can see farther than the giant. This is what our parents desire for us and this is what we desire for our children. We desire that they do better, go farther and achieve more than we did. Proverbs four begins with the first four verses telling us that instruction, commandments and wisdom are passed down from generation to generation. But there is a catch here. A person might think that all we have to do is fill our children’s minds with everything we know for us to pass that wisdom on to them, but that is not true. First, we can’t pour into their minds everything we know. Second, the things we hear and experience are filtered by our prior experiences. Our children are separate individuals and they don’t interpret things the same way we do even when what they hear and see is exactly the same things we hear and see. They are already developing their own grid through which they see the world and the world they experience in their future will be different from the world we have experienced in our past. Therefore when we direct our children to get wisdom (verse 7), we are directing them away from our self and toward God and His Word. God’s Word is the grid through which they should interpret the world. This theme is repeated often in the Scriptures:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

(Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; 15:33)

David was teaching this to us when he wrote Psalm 119:99.

“I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.”

If we want our children to do better, go farther and achieve more than we did then they must meditate on God’s Word. This should be our first instruction. Read carefully, memorize and meditate on the words of Psalm 1. Isn’t that what we all desire for our children?

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”