written by Blake Shipp
Biography
Hello, my name is Blake Shipp. My wife, Rachel, and I have been married for twelve years and we have two terrific children, Addison and Hayden. My wife and I are originally from Austin, Texas. I have been serving as the Equipping Pastor here at Browncroft for two years.
Reflection
Rachel and I have two small kids. The more time I spend around them the more I realize what great responsibility is involved in being a parent. In many ways their future is shaped by what I teach them today. I think that is the point that is most striking to me about today’s text. Yesterday, we saw that the Israelites strayed from God, but when they did God sent a judge to deliver them. The result was peace for forty years (Judges 3.11). Forty years is the Bible’s way of referencing a generation. One generation, the generation that experienced God’s deliverance died and a new generation grew up. What is interesting is that this new generation made the same mistake the former generation made. They too did evil in the eyes of the Lord (Judges 3.12). All I can say is “Wow!” What happened? There seems to have been some sort of breakdown, some sort of failure to hand down the lessons learned by the former generation to the next generation. This second generation had not internalized the truths about God and His will that the former generation learned the hard way. Now they have to learn the lesson all over again.
Here’s the upside. God is still faithful. He sends Ehud to rescue the people. I am so thankful for a God who does not give up on us, for a God who continues to insert Himself into our lives to point us to the life He intends for us. I can’t help but wonder if it had to be this way at all. By now I am starting to see a pattern in this story. The people rebel. God allows them to experience the consequences of their rebellion and then He delivers them. The lesson is learned and then forgotten. It isn’t passed down to the next generation and the story repeats itself. Somehow and some way the cycle has to be broken. What if the first generation had thought beyond itself? What if they had worried less about their own personal experience of deliverance and had worried more about handing down the lessons they had learned? I wonder about this in my own life. Am I more concerned about myself and my immediate experience or am I concerned about the future experience of my children and others that come behind me? Are there things, important things, life lessons, my faith, who I know God to be that I need to take more time to hand off to my kids and those coming behind me? Are there cycles that I can break, cycles of pain and suffering, cycles of mistakes, cycles of rebelling against God that could be broken if I would take my time today to think about my children’s tomorrow? Will I begin thinking less of myself, what I need and what I experience and more about others, specifically those that come behind me? Will I act on these thoughts, seeking to hand off what I have learned?
Your fellow traveler,
Blake