In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?” - Deuteronomy 6:20

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 5, 2012): Deuteronomy 6

I love Andy Stanley’s story of the conversations that he has with his daughters. According to Stanley, he asks his daughters what they would say if someone asked them if their daddy loves them. The appropriate answer is that their daddy loves them “this much” (spoken, of course, with their arms spread as far apart as they can get them.) He admits that parents usually push these things further and longer than they should, and finally one of his daughters called him on it. As he went up to her and asked the question – What would you say to someone asks you if your daddy loves you? Her response was – Dad, no one ever asks me that question.

Stanley admits to her that he knows that, but that is also not really the point of the exercise. What he wants to make sure of is that she knows how much her dad loves her – how important that she is in his life. And we cannot tell anyone anything that we do not know ourselves. Sometimes the best way to know anything is to try (or even think about how you would try) to teach the subject to someone else.

It is the same theory that Moses begins to talk about in his final address to the nation of Israel. When your sons ask you what all of this means, be ready to give them an answer. Would the proverbial sons ask the question? The answer is probably not, unless the parents were ready for the child to ask the question - because if they were ready, then they would also have prepared their children to make the ask.

As we jump ahead in the history of Israel, we would find that the people would often not be ready with the answer and as a result of their unreadiness, their sons would also not ask the question. But the question would not be asked because the parents had forgotten the answer. Either the practices had degraded into traditions without meaning, or the practices had been forgotten altogether. And either way, the question of the sons would be meaningless.

One of the incredible mistakes we make as parents is not to be ready with the answers to the important conversations we want to have with our children. And, like Israel, because of our unreadiness, our children never get to ask us the important questions of this life.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 7