Numbers 14:33-35–And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness,until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34  According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ 

If you have kids or desire to have kids one day, you learn is that there are some things that you maybe willing to endure, but if your kids have to endure it, it may change your perception.  The natural desire from generation to generation is for our kids to “have it” better than we did…

Although that is a desire that you don’t have to be a Christian to have, making things better for the next generation goes so far beyond material wealth, education, and family. This is where a believer’s desires should be distinctly different from the world’s. Mainly because it is possible to struggle with sins that are destroying you, yet be very successful in the eyes of people.

The children of Israel were judged by God in a way that made them see the depths of where their selfish unbelief was leading them to.  They obviously didn’t care to please God by walking by faith, and were persistently against where He was trying to lead them.  So the Lord decided to judge their children as well.  So now their children would have to wander and suffer through things that they could’ve paved the way for.  They could’ve trusted God, so their children could start in the promise land and skip the suffering they endured…

This is why real faith in God goes beyond receiving blessings we can see and touch. But getting to a place in life where the sins of our parents are not casually passed onto our children, where they are battling what we battled with in our lives.  The blood of Christ makes us new creations, where we can “workout” our salvation as new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). To the point we don’t walk in the sins of our parents, but overcome them for the next generation to further flourish in God’s provision and grace.

In His Love, Ld