You’ve seen the bumper stickers on the back of a large RV truckin’ down the highway. It reads, “I’m spending my kids’ inheritance.” You may smile when you see it, but it’s really nothing to smile about. Translated, the message being sent is “I’m living for myself and nobody else, including my kids and grandkids.”

I get increasingly impatient with adults of my generation and beyond who choose to spend their lives and assets on themselves while investing almost nothing of themselves in the lives of the next generations. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for some much deserved rest and relaxation, even in an RV if that’s your thing. On the other hand, it’s hard to justify wasting life on frivolous ventures while ignoring God’s mandated responsibility to use what He has given us to see that none of these little ones Jesus refers to in Matthew 18 perish. How are you spending your life for the next generations?

I have to admit that I am guiltier than I like to admit of spending what I have on myself. I need to be reminded what it means to be rich toward God. I find it easy to get caught up in my own needs and forget that the sufficiency of Christ frees me to be generous and meet the needs of others. What example do I set for my grandchildren when it comes to setting aside my own agenda for the sake of others, especially the next generations? When I stand before the Master and Judge of all, how shall I answer when He asks me to give account for all He gave me and entrusted to me for His purposes?

Let me put out another challenge for those who have the courage to take it up. Here are the four steps for this challenge:

1. Take fifteen minutes every day for the next week to make an inventory of all the assets God has entrusted to you—material and non-material. Non-material assets include things like your skills, talents, spiritual gifts, education and knowledge bank, lessons gained from life experiences, personality traits, faith and family.
2. Choose three assets on your inventory list and ask God to show you who among His little ones He wants to be the beneficiaries of those assets. It could be a grandchild, a neighbor, or a child/youth at church. Perhaps it will be a child you do not even know in the US or another country that God puts on your heart.
3. Now pray and ask God to show you how best to invest and distribute those three assets as soon as possible as a way of expressing the Father’s heart for the little ones. Go to christiangrandparenting.net/resources/downloads (then click Living Will Worksheets) for some tools to help you in this process.
4. Write me and share what you are doing and what happened as a result.

Now repeat the process with all the rest of the assets on your list. Ask God to show you how He wants those invested in the next generations through you as a conduit of His blessing for His purposes and His glory. Take the challenge and watch as God does amazing things through you and in you.

GRANDPAUSE:A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children. Proverbs 13:22