The God Story – A Family Tradition

Today’s Text: Genesis 48: 15

And he blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my father’s Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day.”

Words of Devotion

As literacy increases in our cultures and instant access to information on the web is so readily available, the need to pass down history through verbal forms or storytelling is gradually dying, if not already dead in your part of the world.

This was not the case in the Old Testament. As Jacob was blessing his son Joseph, he reminded him of his family history and how God was so important in it. We also see that God introduces Himself to Jacob as, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. (Genesis 28:13). And we see this again to Moses in Exodus 3:6. There is obviously something important about knowing your roots in God. Especially if this is how He introduces Himself throughout the Old Testament. The Israelites constantly refer to God this way.

Does God really want us to refer to Him this way? 

We can also refer to Him as the God who was the God of our grandparents and our parents. That might seem weird because we may not really know the God stories of our parents or grandparents. They may not have been passed down to us. That doesn’t mean we can’t start doing it now for future generations. As the world becomes more hostile to Jesus and less writing reflects the positives of Christianity.

We still have our oral stories that we can pass down from one generation to another telling of what God has done in our lives and in the lives of our family members. Maybe there isn’t a tradition of God stories in your family, no worries. You can be the one to start them. You can be your family’s first Abraham!

What God story can you tell?