A Lasting Heritage

Verse of the Week:

5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)

A Lasting Heritage

I can remember seeing these beautiful vineyards on a drive up through Northern California.  The lush vines with ripe juicy grapes hanging from the limbs was breathtaking.  I wished Brian and I could have stopped at one of them so that I could just walk through the endless rows of green and purple or lay under the shade of the plants and rest in the beautiful sanctuary.

 Lately I have had the opportunity to study how the Jewish people tended their vineyards during the days when they entered the promise land. Jewish families did not own acres upon acres of land to grow their crops; apparently they created terraces. Each terrace was owned by one Jewish family.    Even though the soil was rocky, it was incredibly fertile and allowed them to grow grapes, figs, and olives.

Vineyard Terrace

Each Jewish family owned a row or terrace

While the Israelites were not responsible for making each plant produce fruit, they were responsible for creating an environment in which would allow plants to prosper and produce much fruit.  One of their main jobs was to keep the stone walls in repair.  They built strong stone walls because it was the only way to keep the rich fertile topsoil from blowing away from a strong wind or washing away from a heavy rainstorm. Once the topsoil escaped, it was gone forever. 

 Many  of these terrace vineyards with the stone walls have been around since the days of Joshua and the plants are still producing figs, grapes, and olives today.  Wow!  It got me to thinking on how well Jewish families taught their children generation after generation on how to take care of the walls and nurture the soil so that their crops would still produce. What a lasting heritage.****

I started thinking about my own children.  What kind of heritage do I want to leave them with?  I once again began studying Jewish tradition in the Old Testament and found this:

5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)

I love the words the Israelites were told to impress on their own hearts and the hearts of their children, "to love God." The lasting heritage that I want to give my children is not a vineyard, money, or some fancy heirloom but a deep love for Jesus. A love that they can pass down to their children, to their grandchildren and great grandchildren.  

I know I cannot make my boys love Jesus; just like the Israelites could not make their plants produce fruit.  But I can create an environment that will give them the opportunity to learn to love Jesus.  I can build high stone walls and tend the rich fertile soil, and, eventually, with much loving care, I pray that an abundance of fruit will began to grow from the vines and branches.  I pray that I am able to show my two boys God's loving grace, and that through His grace, they grow to love Jesus.  I pray that I will let Christ orchestrate my life in a way that my children will see nothing but Jesus inside of me, and eventually they desire to have what I have.

Sweet Jesus, may you build a strong stone walls in our home.

What lasting heritage do you want to pass down? 

****Jewish history of Terraced Vineyards was found in Ray Vander Lann's DVD "With All Your Heart"