Future Generations
- Anonymous Infusion leader who doesn't like his name on the internet
- Mar 17, 2010
- Series: Infusion Blog
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by Anonymous Infusion Leader who doesn't like his name on the internet
My daughter’s softball team had a field clean-up day recently to prepare the local ball field for the rest of the season. As we were raking, shoveling, painting, picking up trash and mending fences one of the experienced team moms commented on the day. “This is so much better than last year … and a ton better than two or three years ago … we used to pick glass out of the infield, graffiti was everywhere, dirty diapers, beer bottles, cigarette butts … the place was a mess ... it’s so much easier now. Now it’s just some leaves and a fence. Now we can actually build something rather than just trying to maintain.” Three years ago a group of girls and their families laid a foundation at that little ball field in the middle of Escondido. They put their time and sweat and care into it so that three years later, when I got there, we just had to rake a few leaves before we started building the new bullpen.
Jeremiah 29:11 notes a promise that God makes - “for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” - but it’s a promise that, though written to the Jews in exile, was intended for the future generations of those people ... not for the immediate readers. The recipients of that promise probably weren’t even alive at the time. But they “kept on keeping on” knowing that someday the promise would be fulfilled for their kids, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren.
Those families three years ago that put in the hard work of cleaning up the softball field allowed my daughter, three years later, to rake a few leaves and then build something better. I’m not even sure if that’s what they had in mind back then. But it made a difference. That’s hard to do ... thinking of how you can benefit someone who may not even exist at the time. I’ve very recently started to examine my life through that similar vision – a multi-generational vision (read some of Voddie Beaucham’s stuff for more on the topic). Like the Jews in exile, a multi-generational vision is not easy work. Especially when you’re a selfish, prideful, I-want-it-now kind of guy. As a parent, am I raising my kids so their kids’ kids will be affected? Am I pouring into them something that will affect generations to come? Am I starting something now that will affect my kids’ future spouses? My community? My church?
Three years from now I hope to go back to that small ball field and maybe build some bleachers.