Day 10 - inheritance
We started a new series in church a couple of weeks back - the gospel of Matthew. Apparently we are going to be studying it together for the next 19 months 😀 Which will be good. Im looking forward to it.
Matthew starts his good news story with a whole long list of names. All the generations of Jesus right back into distant history. Which was important at the time because the readership of the gospel needed to be reassured of a few things. Primarily that Jesus was from the royal line of David, so that He fulfilled the prophecies of the OT.
These days we seem to have rediscovered an interest in our heritage. We can get DNA tests to find our distant relatives and the family ancestry discovery business has become a huge thing. Who Do You Think You Are is fascinating television because it gives us all a window into our own possible pasts. Its interesting. We all come from somewhere. It can be fun to find out about it.
I'll tell you a story I hope I havent told before. About Auntie Gladys.
Auntie Glad was a bit of a legend in our family when I was growing up. She was an aunt to my Dad by marriage. In 1945 she was watching Billy Graham on the television broadcasting his legendary rally from Wembley - and she got saved. As far as I know at that point there were no Christians in my family and from that time on Auntie Glad was known as a bit of a ' crackpot' Auntie. I heard her name mentioned a few times over the years but I never met her and didnt really know anything much about her.
When I was a new graduate with a seriously broken heart back in the late 80s I found myself living with my Dad for a few months. I was hiding from the world. The man I was sure God had said I was going to marry didnt want to marry me. I had graduated a year previously and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I went to stay with dad and got a job in WH Smiths stacking shelves whilst I tried to put my broken heart back together. I knew I needed to stay connected to church so I went off to try and find some sort of local fellowship or charismatic congregation and ended up in Ripon in a small house church. The first Sunday I walked through the door I was greeted by a tiny, ancient, white haired old lady wearing a fur coat. She threw her arms around me, welcomed me into church and said ' Im Gladys, but everyone calls me Auntie Glad'. I didnt make the connection. But when I went back home that day I happened to mention this lady to my Dad and he said ' Oh, that will be my Auntie Glad who got saved by watching Billy Graham on the telly in 1945' !!
Now at this point in the story you need to know that my Dad is not saved. Not as far as I know. He has been to church all his life, said the creed, sung the hymns. But he was also a freemason as was his father. And in the few conversations Ive had with him over the years it seems clear to me that he doesnt believe in much and sees religion as something conforting but somewhat..... irrelevant.
I went back to the Ripon church the following week, met Auntie Glad on the door again and told her we were related. Her face broke into the most beatific grin and she said ' Oooh I prayed for your daddy from when he was a baby!' Her joy at seeing that her prayers had been answered in the next generation was palpable. My joy at realsising that someone else had been praying for my Dad all those years was also palpable, Auntie Glad and I got to know each other a little over the few weeks I was staying with Dad . She died not long after that and I know she will be in the front row of heaven with her hands raised high shouting her praises to Jesus in a loud Yorkshire accent 😁
There are people in your background who were believers, prayers, intercessors. People whose DNA you inherit and whose prayers are bearing fruit in you even now. Amazing eh? Equally, YOUR prayers and YOUR DNA is travelling forward down your family line. Even if you dont have kids yourself, you do have a family network and somewhere someone who is related to you can benefit from the heritage you have in Jesus. Im still waiting to see the answer to Gladys's prayers and my own in my Dad's life. But I firmly believe that her prayers for my Dad bore fruit in my life and are bearing fruit in the lives of my three boys. Its a mystery how blessing trickles down the generations, picking up speed as it goes. But the prayers of a righteous man avail MUCH. Much more than we can think or imagine. Immesurably more.
So this Christmas as we re-connect with family and visit people we havent seen since last Christmas, or as we lament broken relationships and deal with difficult dynamics, lets pray for everyone who is related to us in any way. Pray blessing on them. Pray fruit into them and their descendents. Release the life of Jesus which resides in us to spread through our family tree. Just as the prostitute and the foreigner and the hard working ordinary people in Jesus's genealogy had no idea who was going to be born as a result of their existence, neither do we. Anything is possible. And even more than that.
Matthew starts his good news story with a whole long list of names. All the generations of Jesus right back into distant history. Which was important at the time because the readership of the gospel needed to be reassured of a few things. Primarily that Jesus was from the royal line of David, so that He fulfilled the prophecies of the OT.These days we seem to have rediscovered an interest in our heritage. We can get DNA tests to find our distant relatives and the family ancestry discovery business has become a huge thing. Who Do You Think You Are is fascinating television because it gives us all a window into our own possible pasts. Its interesting. We all come from somewhere. It can be fun to find out about it.
I'll tell you a story I hope I havent told before. About Auntie Gladys.
Auntie Glad was a bit of a legend in our family when I was growing up. She was an aunt to my Dad by marriage. In 1945 she was watching Billy Graham on the television broadcasting his legendary rally from Wembley - and she got saved. As far as I know at that point there were no Christians in my family and from that time on Auntie Glad was known as a bit of a ' crackpot' Auntie. I heard her name mentioned a few times over the years but I never met her and didnt really know anything much about her.
When I was a new graduate with a seriously broken heart back in the late 80s I found myself living with my Dad for a few months. I was hiding from the world. The man I was sure God had said I was going to marry didnt want to marry me. I had graduated a year previously and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I went to stay with dad and got a job in WH Smiths stacking shelves whilst I tried to put my broken heart back together. I knew I needed to stay connected to church so I went off to try and find some sort of local fellowship or charismatic congregation and ended up in Ripon in a small house church. The first Sunday I walked through the door I was greeted by a tiny, ancient, white haired old lady wearing a fur coat. She threw her arms around me, welcomed me into church and said ' Im Gladys, but everyone calls me Auntie Glad'. I didnt make the connection. But when I went back home that day I happened to mention this lady to my Dad and he said ' Oh, that will be my Auntie Glad who got saved by watching Billy Graham on the telly in 1945' !!
Now at this point in the story you need to know that my Dad is not saved. Not as far as I know. He has been to church all his life, said the creed, sung the hymns. But he was also a freemason as was his father. And in the few conversations Ive had with him over the years it seems clear to me that he doesnt believe in much and sees religion as something conforting but somewhat..... irrelevant.
There are people in your background who were believers, prayers, intercessors. People whose DNA you inherit and whose prayers are bearing fruit in you even now. Amazing eh? Equally, YOUR prayers and YOUR DNA is travelling forward down your family line. Even if you dont have kids yourself, you do have a family network and somewhere someone who is related to you can benefit from the heritage you have in Jesus. Im still waiting to see the answer to Gladys's prayers and my own in my Dad's life. But I firmly believe that her prayers for my Dad bore fruit in my life and are bearing fruit in the lives of my three boys. Its a mystery how blessing trickles down the generations, picking up speed as it goes. But the prayers of a righteous man avail MUCH. Much more than we can think or imagine. Immesurably more.
So this Christmas as we re-connect with family and visit people we havent seen since last Christmas, or as we lament broken relationships and deal with difficult dynamics, lets pray for everyone who is related to us in any way. Pray blessing on them. Pray fruit into them and their descendents. Release the life of Jesus which resides in us to spread through our family tree. Just as the prostitute and the foreigner and the hard working ordinary people in Jesus's genealogy had no idea who was going to be born as a result of their existence, neither do we. Anything is possible. And even more than that.
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