One Generation Shall Praise your name to Another

One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:4)

I used to have an old LP of Handel's Chandos Anthems, and Anthem No 5 "I will magnify thee" is a lovely setting of Psalm 145. I love the way he makes the words "one generation" and "to another" trip over each other in a kind of waterfall of sound (you can tell I have no musical training whatsoever - I just love the stuff) but I think we've always usually thought of the above verse, as, yes, we ought to be teaching our children stuff about God. But it can work upwards as well, the children telling the parents about God, as happened to us yesterday.

We were sitting in a Church, a small fellowship in Limavady, waiting to share about our plans for Lisbon, and the mobile phone was not switched off. Daughter Sharon, in London, sends a text at that moment, and quotes Exodus 33:14 "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest" in the body of the text. What Sharon did not know was that that verse has been the signature verse of our whole married life, from way before she was even conceived. That that verse is the one God used to seal our relationship at a time when as young Bible College students in Glasgow we wanted to know if God had a future in the growing attraction we felt for one another. At that time, back in 1979, my Mother, Sharon's granny, not even aware of any kind of blossomin gromance whatsoever, sent me a letter from Coleraine and started it with this verse and nothing else "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest".

And now twenty eight years on, God uses the same verse, this time through the granddaughter, and puts a seal on his calling and equipping us for ministry with the church he is bringing into being in the Park of the Nations, Lisbon. Verily, one generation does tell another about the woderful works of God, and it works both ways!!