The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law. ~Deuteronomy 29:29
Your house is on fire. All the members of your family, including the pets, are safely out, and the fire chief tells you that you can make one last trip into the house before it’s too late. What would you retrieve?
Many would grab the picture albums or photo DVDs, thumb drives, or the laptops that have family moments saved to their hard drives. Nearly everything else can be replaced, but if the family pictorial memories are destroyed, there’s no bringing them back. They’re irreplaceable.
A few months before our daughter’s wedding in 1994, years before everything could be digitally sorted and displayed, I decided to put together a walk-down-memory-lane slide show. So for several hours I rummaged through our old photos. Magically, twenty-five years was compressed into what seemed like no time at all—instant replay at high speed. I saw special birthday celebrations, memorable vacations, leg casts from various accidents or surgeries, and building projects. For several weeks following my photographic review, I played the role of our family’s historian. Because I had taken time to review the past, I was a veritable walking family highlight video.
It seemed as though Moses had also spent some time thumbing through the Israelites’ photo albums. And because he had this unique historical overview in mind, he delivered some stout warnings about the future. It was as though he was saying, “I know how God punishes for sin. I’ve seen Him do it in the past. If we don’t obey Him today, we’ll suffer as we did yesterday.”
Then he adds an interesting footnote: “The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law” (v. 29).
He reminds the people that God is still God. Many of the why and how questions will never be answered. But he tells them, the things we do know, the experiences we have had belong to us. These are forever tucked away in our memories. We must learn from them. We must take our cues from them.
If we as dads remember the past, plenty of lessons are hidden there. Then we must share these truths with our children and let these truths be our encouragers, our instructors, and our coaches.