Teaching Our Grands to Do Likewise

“Phillip, do you ever let God love you?”

Imagine sitting in a crowded airport, enduring a five-hour flight delay, and having a traveling companion ask: “Do you ever let God love you?” This is exactly what happened to best-selling author Phillip Yancy. The woman’s startling question exposed a “gaping hole” in his spiritual life. ¹

Mr. Yancy’s detailed description of this airport encounter stunned me. I put down his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, and contemplated the woman’s question. I realized for the first time that we have an awesome responsibility not only to teach our grandchildren about God’s love but to show them how to receive his love. 

This begins with self-examination. After all, we cannot give, teach, or model what we do not have ourselves. We need to ask ourselves: Do we let God love us? Do we experience joy in knowing that the Creator of the universe numbers the hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30 NIV). Or do we continue to accept the lie that we are unloved, despite the most physical expression of God’s love, the crucifixion of his beloved Son?

In our quest to allow God to love us, really love us, and teach our grandchildren to do the same, we may want to consider the following:

Relinquish the need to be perfect.

Perfection is out of our reach. For perfectionists, life is a series of ups-and-downs, vacillating from feelings of success to those of failure. Whether they are up or down, perfectionists constantly deal with the sin of pride; and like all sin, pride separates them from the love of God.

Only one perfect man walked the earth, and his name is Jesus. God “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (II Corinthians 5:21 NIV). By taking our eyes off ourselves and placing them on the Lord, we can relinquish our need for perfection, open our hearts to God’s acceptance and love, and teach our grandchildren to do likewise.

Stop confusing humility with self-deprecation.

Many of us degrade ourselves in an attempt to be humble. However, imagine the mixed messages we send our grandchildren when in one breath, we talk about being beloved children of God and in the next breath, we tear ourselves down with disparaging remarks.

According to 19^th century theologian Andrew Murray, “humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all.” This disappearance of self occurs with spiritual maturity. As we grow in Christ, we reflect our sinful natures less and his image more. 

Scripture tells us that God loved us and “chose us in him before the creation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4 ESV). It’s time we let God’s smile be our delight, modeling for our grandchildren what it means to bask in the truth that we are loved.

Immerse ourselves in God’s Word.

For years, my husband and I had a sticky note with the words of Zephaniah 3:17 posted on our bathroom mirror. I took the note off the mirror a year ago, but the verse isn’t forgotten. It’s written on our hearts. Whenever we feel assaulted by the enemy, we stand on the truth that our Lord “takes great delight in us… and rejoices over us with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV, paraphrased).

The enemy repeatedly hurls insults and accusations at God’s children in a desperate attempt to convince us that God doesn’t love us. Scripture tells us to thwart the enemy’s attempts with the “sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17, ESV).

We need to show our grandchildren what it means to stand against the enemy’s lies by standing on the Word of God!

Be attuned to daily blessings and give thanks.

One devoted grandmother awakened her grandchildren in the pre-dawn hours, bundled them into the car, and drove to the beach, just in time to watch the first rays of morning peak over the horizon. Her grandchildren sat in hushed silence as streamers of red, pink, and orange light streaked across the sky, heralding the arrival of a new day. As the sun made its way above the horizon, she and her grandchildren shared a heartwarming conversation about God.

God’s love is evidenced in his daily blessings. This precious grandmother reminds us to open our eyes, and the eyes of our grandchildren, to the many different ways God manifests his love.

Celebrate the Eucharist

The most tangible evidence of God’s love is the sacrifice of his Son on the cross. We remember this sacrifice whenever we follow our Lord’s instructions as described by Paul in his letter to the Corinthians: “…when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me,’” (I Corinthians 11:24-25 ESV).

During communion, we gather at the Lord’s table not only to remember Christ’s sacrifice but to celebrate our adoption into the family of God. When we received salvation through Jesus Christ, we received “the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15 ESV).

Love generously as an outpouring of God’s love.

One day, my husband became distracted and forgot about the water running in the kitchen sink. Suffice it to say, the water filled the sink, covered the counter, and spilled onto the floor. Still, the water kept running. It’s the same with God’s love; it overflows our capacity to contain it. Scripture tells us: “We love because he first loved us” (I John 4:19 ESV). We become increasingly aware of God’s love when we openly share our gifts and resources with others and create opportunities for our grandchildren to do the same. This may include asking them to help distribute groceries at a local food pantry or find a mission trip you can share together.

A Blessing:

May we all delight in the fact that God loves us and delights in us, and may we share this delight with our precious grandchildren. 

¹ The Jesus I Never Knew, Phillip Yancy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), page 269.