Promises, Promises

This morning's Bible reading was 2 Kings 8:16-24. Basically, David's great-great (and so on) grandson was king of Judah. He was not listening to God and was leading the nation away from God. But God wouldn't punish him and destroy Judah, even though it sounded like he really wanted to, because of a promise he made to David. Verse 19 really struck me:

"Yet the LORD would not destroy Judah for David his servant's sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light, and to his children."

That's KJV, of course. The Message translation says that God "promised to keep a lamp burning through David's descendants."

That got me to thinking about what promise God has kept for me that I want for my descendants. My first thought was that I want to be alive when Jesus comes back, because I really want to see the sky crack, so there shouldn't be too many descendants to bless. At the rate I'm going, I'll be lucky to see great-grandchildren.

Next, I thought about all of the stuff that God's kept constant in my life. I got a little overwhelmed and started feeling really grateful. Then, I thought about how much crap God has put up with from me, and I started feeling really ungrateful.

When I finally settled down to get serious, I came up with three things. I want my kids and grandkids (and great-grandkids, if the Lord should tarry) to have the incredible joy, the friendship with God, and the favor with man that God has blessed me with for as long as I can remember. These are the things that, for me, have defined my life and made it worth living. Even if everything else was going to pot, I could always count on them. I want my children to have that same confidence.

That's the promise that I want.