This month’s topic is spiritual currency, and we began by looking at God’s invitation, through Isaiah, to those “who have no money” to “come, buy wine and milk.” Isaiah conveys the idea that life involves an investment of some kind, but he makes it clear that our earthly “legal tender” is not the currency God holds dear!

God encourages us NOT to spend our lives working for things that fail to satisfy. God promises to do more than meet our needs. He intends to provide an abundance. He promises to be joined to us in an everlasting covenant “according to the mercies shown to David.” And Isaiah teaches us that God’s mercies are far and away greater than any compassion or any pardon we are able to offer one another.

We spoke of what we as parents want to give our children. We would love to offer them peace - an international peace and an internal peace. We yearn to be able to give them a sense of contentment that would motivate them to contribute to their communities, while being at ease with who they are and satisfied with what they have. We desire to give our children a faith that would undergird and yield this kind of contentment.

Isaiah’s prophecy assures us that God’s word will accomplish what God intends. But what does God intend? We recognized that we as parents have been given a particular insight into those intentions. Our generous yearnings for our children are very likely tiny versions of God’s great desires for US.