Tell Your Children
Once the crisis is past and we have worked through and established our ‘creed’ it is important to tell the children, and what better way than through a Song of Thanksgiving.
What ‘notes’ would we want to include? Joy, certainly (v 14). Whatever we have been through ourselves we want our children and grandchildren to feel that life is great, life is worth living and offers enormous potential for good. It may not be the whole truth, but it is a crucial part of it. Security for children depends on a hunch that whatever happens they are in an environment where they can feel safe. That is the ‘song’ we need to sing, and we need to sing it often. What happens to them of course will be different from what happened to us. They will have to work it through for themselves but to do it they need that ‘hunch’ that deep down everything is all right.
Another note is confidence (vv 13-16). Fear, like guilt, is negative and destructive. Naturally there will be times when we are afraid, but the next generation needs to feel that what we believe in is not the fear but the capacity to overcome it and to move forward.
Next, a sense of community (vv 17-19). Think of ‘God in the midst’ as the conviction of a community of believers where they can always tap into resources and reserves which whatever happens will be moving them forward in the right direction, and that those forces are always more powerful than those which will drag them down.
Finally, think of Zephaniah perhaps as a cultic prophet leading the worship of the faithful and constantly urging his people to repeat these doctrines and to share them with one another until they are written on their hearts. Now that would be a Creed worth having.