Section (3) of Ch. 3. (The Power of a Parent’s Blessing)

 

 

Blessing in Eighteenth-Century America

 

 Although it is an ancient path established by God, it seems parental blessing and the resultant prosperity of soul were much more common even in American culture as recently as the eighteenth century. I was shocked some time ago when I heard Christan historian David Barton give an American history lecture. I knew it must have taken tremendous courage and integrity for the American colonists to stand up against the most powerful empire in the world at the time, Great Britain, to establish a new nation. I realized they must have felt a great sense of destiny and calling to do so.

 

 I assumed that to possess the courage, character, and settled sense of identity and destiny that it took to found a new nation, most of these early Americans had to have been seasoned veterans of life, people at least in their fifties and sixties. I was shocked to learn that several founding leaders who are household names now were in their teens or early twenties when they performed the acts for which they are now famous.

 

 Perhaps most notable was John Quincy Adams. He apparently began his diplomatic career at age fourteen when he accompanied Francis Dana, whom the Continental Congress had appointed US Minister to Russia, as his secretary and interpreter of French. The two were on an official mission to Russia designed to secure diplomatic recognition of the newly founded United States. Adams was later appointed US Minister to Holland when he was still in his twenties.

Besty Ross was only twenty-four when she is believed to have created the first official American flag. Then there were Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, James Madison, John Marshall, and the French Marquis de Lafayette, who were all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five when they played significant roles in the American Revolutionary War.

How many fourteen-year-olds would you be willing to send overseas as a secretary and interpreter for a diplomat? If you ask your average fourteen-year-old about his purpose and destiny, you will probably hear about video games, TV shows, and goals to be rich and “have fun.” Two hundred years ago people commonly practiced law and medicine, started businesses, and got married at ages sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen.

 

 Here is a scary thought: How many of the thirty-year-olds you know would you be willing to send overseas as an ambassador from your nation? Oftentimes even many thirty-year-olds today do not display the integrity and sense of destiny that were evident in fourteen-year-olds two hundred years ago. Why not? We have departed from God’s ancient paths.

 

 Apparently even in the United States two hundred years ago there was different sort of confidence, maturity, and character in young people than there is today. Why? I believe the answer rests in impartation of blessing from parents to children, a tradition that was still more intact even in American culture two centuries ago. Before the Industrial Revolution of the 1840s every child had a father, a family, and a future. Families ate meals together every day, and parents blessed their children regularly. Two centuries ago parents prepared their children to fulfill a destiny, not just to have a job.

Today many people are wanderers on the planet simply trying to pay their bills and keep their marriages and families from disaster. They’re searching for significance and purpose and are plagued by a continual restlessness. They constantly wonder, “Am I really loved or valuable? Am I doing anything that is truly significant or meaningful?” These deep questions of the soul were meant to be answered by God through powerful impartations of identity and destiny that come when a child’s father and mother bless him/her at critical stages in life.