Re:Generation Sample

The Generational Epidemic  

On a scale of 1-10 how impatient are you? I’d like to think I’m pretty patient but I recently bought something online and felt a deep discontent that the best the company could offer me was the option of ‘next day delivery’. On top of that when I missed the delivery man the next day, I moved mountains to make sure I could pick up the package that day, because I ‘needed’ what I’d ordered. 

I didn’t need it. I just wanted it. I realized in that moment just how immediate I had become, I couldn’t wait. 

Our instant gratification culture today has for many of us, made us numb to the beauty of process, patience or the simplicity of being told ‘No, you can’t have it the way you want it’.

Consider Jacob and Esau. 

Esau had a promised inheritance from his father Isaac. His birthright would have made a way for him and the generations to come after him to have an abundant and full life.
Yet on return from a tough day’s hunting, his hunger (enforced by the environment he had been in and its effect on him,) caused him to give all this up in an instant. Esau surrendered his future for an immediate appetite when his brother offered to trade his birthright for a bowl of soup. Blinded by his present desire, he couldn’t see the generations that would lose out in his line of children.

“I’m so hungry I’m going to die” he says, yet Esau was nowhere near death. 

And yet just like Esau our immediate culture, our increasing consumer world, drives us to even believe we ‘need’ something when in fact it may be the very thing that’s robbing our future. 

Think about someone choosing to have an affair. Compelled by an immediate desire they not only surrender their own commitment to someone else but if a parent their choice impacts their children’s capacity to believe in marriage, trust, integrity and commitment. Or building into their children that it’s ok for them to do when the time comes.

God wants us to be people that filter our choices, motivations, decisions and actions not only through the lens of right and wrong, Godly or ungodly but also generational impact. He wants us to reflect Him in thinking generationally and not just immediately.

- Where are you blinded by immediate desire and forget the impact on the generations to come?

- What could you fall prey to and give up yours or another's inheritance for?

Begin to filter your choices through the question of ‘how will this impact others?’