dailydatewithgod

We recognize the power of knowing where and who we come from.  We are curious about our background and ancestry even to the level of DNA.  We want to know what of our story comes from what came before us.  Knowing one’s heritage provides a fuller picture of who we are and what has transpired in order to bring us to who we are. Heritage is not only our background of people and places but of beliefs.  Those ideas get passed down often without question as to their current application.  Why is it we get together at Thanksgiving every year?  Is it because we want to celebrate that particular national remembrance? Is it because we are Americans and it has meaning for us? Or is it that we believe we are supposed to do so with the people from whom we came and shaped our lives in the beginning?  We cannot change who or where we came from but we can evaluate whether the ideas that came along with those people and places still apply to us today. A place to start is by looking to see if those ideas hold a place just in our minds or in our hearts as well.  It is not about getting rid of it all or making it wrong.  It is more like taking it off the display shelf, dusting it off, seeing what it is made of and trying it out to see if it fits our heart today.  Some things may and some things may not.  It does not make them right or wrong, after all, they worked for whom they worked for in their situation.  Why else would they have carried them out?  People do what works. We are called to live our lives in the design of the hearts within us.  We cannot truly live the truth of who we are if we are only a carbon copy of our heritage. The heritage we come from gives us a starting point and it is what we make of it with the uniqueness of who we are that allows it to grow and become something alive in the world today.  We can honor our heritage without blindly following it.