|
Listen to this devotional: |
Listen while you read: "Saviour Thy Dying Love"1 (Lyrics) |
Psalm 78:4 – We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. (NIV 2011)
As I write my book about my life from Bermuda to Vancouver Island, I am very aware that I am recording for "the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord." I am amazed at how often I feel so much at ease with everything that has happened to me, for the Lord has been guiding me all along in both my daily walk and in my writing. Have you experienced that delightful feeling when you return home after a busy day, aware that the Lord has guided you throughout all you had to do?
As a young deaconess, I can clearly recall arriving in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, up in the north, and discovering that I had both to preach and to play the organ, as the church there was without a minister or organist. I had never preached before, but I took to it quite well, for God had prepared me, and everybody thanked me afterwards. On discovering that I could preach, I decided to return to Toronto, Ontario, and attend Knox College to prepare for the ministry, as the Presbyterian Church was by then ordaining women.
The Lord was guiding my life in ways totally unexpected, and strengthening my resolve and my body to tackle my future as I served Him. Now, when writing my life story, memories come back to share with my readers and to help me recall with thanksgiving the Lord's guidance. Thank You, Lord!
Psalm 48:12,13b – Walk about Zion, go around her, count her towers … that you may tell of them to the next generation. (NIV 2011)
These verses also tell us to recount God's activities to the next generation. As I write my life story, will the next generations after me read and understand? What I want them to know is how the Lord has led me all over Canada through the years. I count the towers — the places where He sent me to serve Him — and His mighty works that I can report.
I believe that this is where many of us are failing the Lord today: we are not relating the story to others of how God has led our lives. The next generations need to hear it. We need to pray that God will raise us all up in faith and trust so that we can tell the next generation our story of how God is leading us, and pray with them about their lives today.
Prayer: O Lord, forgive us for not passing on our life's stories. Increase our motivation to describe to the next generations how You have led us and blessed us, with much love and enthusiasm. It's amazing how, following Your guidance, we have been lifted up in ways that are worth narrating. Help us to open up, please, Lord. Amen.
Forward this devotional Share this devotional on Facebook Like PresbyCan on Facebook
Although PresbyCan doesn't have a mobile app, you can still have a PresbyCan icon on your mobile phone home screen. 
Tuesday, April 16, 2024 – In Peru — Please pray for this summer season at our beach-town home to be a blessing to the little Fellowship we have started and that the Lord would "add to our numbers those who are being saved".
Housing: "Update April 14, 2024; Please pray extra fervently for tomorrow when she and her son will be going..." 
Thanks for the good word Iris.
Thank you Iris, for sharing this devotional based upon your life. Blessings.
Thank you Iris. Best of luck in writing your life story.
May God guide your hand as you write your life story.
Dear Iris,
I have enjoyed your Daily Devotionals.
Thank you for your inspiring messages as I begin each day with PresbyCan Daily Devotional.
I knew this had to be you before I finished it!
I think we need to share our faith stories not only for the next generation but for all.
We Presbyterians are a bit timid about that sort of thing but we need to change.
Lives may depend on it!
Thanks.
Hi Iris
We all should all be writing a book about our life. Maybe it would help young people to put some perspective on things that happen in life. When we are young, we all are sure we are the only ones that have dealt with life’s challenges as they come along.
God bless.
This morning, before reading your devotional I was praying for the Holy Spirit to help me share the things of the Lord with my children. They were brought up knowing the Bible and being taken to church but two of my sons are not following the Lord.
Thank you for your prayers for all of us who are in that situation.
Thank you always for your devotionals.
Even now you never lack the adventurous spirit that has been with you all your life. Fortunately, God was at the helm, or you might have landed in very different “towers”!
Good for you writing all this down and encouraging me in this DD to share how God has guided my path. I am sure your book will be very interesting to read – keep at it!
You are so right, Iris, about recording our generation’s experiences with our Heaven Father’s leadings.
How he wove our lives to bring about His design for the pattern.
(BC)
Hi Iris,
I can agree that it is so important to tell others our life’s story, our faith journey as well as our earthly journey. I really appreciate the words you wrote.
From my earliest memories I wanted my grandchildren and descendants to know about their Opa and Oma.
Thank you for writing.
Dear Iris,
Once again, your devotional has touched my heart at a depth that I must not deny. Here at my new seniors’ community abode, I am being urged to write my own life story, but I admit to feeling inadequate for that task. My memory, of course, is declining and I feel more than a bit hesitant to tackle our story. With your example, and hopefully your prayers as a guide, however, I may find courage enough to begin this challenge – something for my children and grandchildren to meditate on as they consider their own life journey under God’s leading.
Greetings Iris,
Enjoyed another one of your devotional contributions. It will be interesting in the years to come for the future generations reading your book and learning all the different paths the Lord has taken you.
I relied on the Lord’s help time and again thru many situations and have stories to share with the present generation of how things were back in that time and how thankful for the Lord’s ever present mercy and grace.
Blessings to you,
(B.C.)
So true Iris!!
All my ancestors arrived in Canada and US in early 1900’s and I knew nothing of. They came from different countries and had stories to tell, but they didn’t share them. There was lots of hardship and things they hid from but nothing that couldn’t be resolved. I would have like to know what their everyday lives were like but they didn’t SHARE.
We all go our own ways to make a life for ourselves but how much of that would have been enhanced by knowledge of family.
You have had a wonderful journey in one direction and mine led me down that path of “mothering” my brood. Those were things that we did not see as children but by just going forth one day at a time and not alone.
Hello Iris.
I would like to know more about the books you have written.
I know I will find them very interesting, especially the one you are now writing.
Blessings.