Deuteronomy 6:5-9 – Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (NIV)

Three generations ago, my husband's grandfather planted an apple orchard on nine acres of land. He had several varieties of apples, with other fruit-bearing trees planted among them — trees that would grow more quickly and produce sooner.

In between the rows of young trees, he planted vegetables that they sold at the market or traded with other farmers for slaughter animals to provide for the family through the winter months.

When I first met my husband, he was living on that farm, still enjoying the fruit from the trees his grandfather had planted. The benefit from the first generation, which planted trees to enjoy the fruit, was passed on for the generations to follow, so that they might have that same enjoyment of the fruit that the trees would continue to bear.

Like planting trees and passing their fruit on through the generations, today's Scripture speaks about how we Christians need to keep telling the story of God's love for us, and how, every day, we should keep on talking about this story and passing it along. Let us think of it as a legacy to enjoy, and keep on telling God's stories handed down through our Bibles to this generation and to generations yet to come, carrying on with our Christian beliefs and traditions.

Prayer: Loving God, enable us to teach our children to love You with all their hearts, with all their souls, with all their minds, and with all their strength, so that we might impress Your love upon our children now and for future generations. At this very time, as we approach Christmas, may we be especially reminded to tell the story of the birth of our Saviour, Jesus, in Whose name we pray. Amen.

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About the author:

Anne Russell <annerussell80@gmail.com>
Brampton, Ontario, Canada
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