Kenny- Kenny
Must All Generations Be Connected?
The devil wants us.
I believe in God and I believe in the devil. The devil's unhappy and he wants us to be unhappy too. We're on his mind constantly and he doesn't rest. He's wanting to dismantle all that is good in the world and in our lives.
He's got a lot of tools available to him. He also takes advantage of our natural weaknesses such as pride and worldliness, depression, self-centeredness, laziness, blame-avoidance and anger. He is now using the media in all its forms and even politics to push his agenda. He's very clever.
The devil desires generations to be separate.
One of his most insidious methods is to separate the generations from each other. In C.S. Lewis', 'The Screwtape Letters,' Mr. Lewis writes from the perspective of a 'senior devil' (Screwtape) writing to an 'apprentice devil' (Wormwood). In these letters, Screwtape gives Wormwood advice about how to take us ('patients') off-course. The ideas he suggests are impressively strategic. In one letter, we read:
"And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another."
I believe the devil understands a fundamental truth about humans. If we can learn from the mistakes and triumphs of past generations, we're less likely to make the same mistakes again. If we are living by the cumulative wisdom of every generation, even one previous generation, we are much more likely to follow a successful course throughout our lives.
If he can detach the current generation from the one before, we are much more likely to step into 'traps and pitfalls' that are everywhere! If we detach, it's possible for our values and morals to slip drastically and quickly. Also, if we don't know where we've been, it's harder to see where we're going.
We all share the same destination.
The current state of our aging parents and grandparents is precisely where we are all headed. Every one of us, if we're lucky, is going to get old. Our faces are going to get wrinkled and spotted. Our hair is going to get gray. We're going to bear the scars of everything that will try, unsuccessfully, to kill us. Eventually, we're going to die.
Let's pass on what we learn.
Along the way, we're going to make a lot of mistakes and learn from those. If we can pass that wisdom on to the next generation, that generation will be better for it.Obviously, this principle is equally true for our current aging generation. If they can pass on what they've learned, our lives will be better for it.