"And Isaac said unto his son [Jacob], How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me." --Genesis 27:20
"And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 21So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: 22And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." --Genesis 28:20-22All too often, people see faith as something for their parents' generation, and not for them personally. Notice how Jacob says "thy God"? Jacob never took God as his God until after he returned from Laban's house. He does fulfill the vow in ch. 28 (listed above), but notice that his following God was conditional. Our worship of God must be both personal and unconditional if we want God's unrestricted blessings on our lives. God wanted to use Jacob (He'd made a promise after all), yet was only involved as Jacob would let Him be. Jacob had to make God personal if He wanted to see God's power. How many times do we simply see God's power in other's lives because we're busy just fulfilling our parents' religion?
As a side note, one of our first responsibilities as parents is to show the importance of God in daily life. If He's not important to us, He won't be important to our kids--they learn through observation, not speeches. One of Satan's biggest lies is that kids from Christian homes don't need God for themselves, and, as a result, they become one of his biggest prey. Make sure your children know why it matters that God be personal to them. He wants fellowship with us individually and collectively, and He made us for that purpose. Why won't we take time to personally spend time with the One Who personally crafted us?
