The day’s materials
Disability, Inclusion and Accessibility in Public Life
Hope for Future Generations
Psalm 78:4-7
Old Testament
We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done. For he established a covenant in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget God’s deeds, but keep his commandments,
Hebrews 11:13-16
New Testament
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. If indeed they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had enough time to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Psalm 78 gives a quiet charge to the people of God: do not hide the Lord’s works from your children. Tell the next generation. Not as propaganda, but as testimony: the God who helped us will help you. Memory becomes a form of love.
Hebrews speaks of another kind of memory: the saints who lived by promises they did not fully receive. They saw them “from afar”, and still they embraced them. They confessed they were strangers and pilgrims, seeking a better country.
Accessibility can feel slow because it belongs to this patient kind of faith. Much of it is unseen. You adjust a doorway, you change a form, you practise a gentler tone, you fund what will not make headlines. And you may not live to see all the fruit. But you are building a small witness to the city we seek: a place where the vulnerable are not stranded outside the gates. Some obedience is quiet, and that is enough.
Lord, give us long obedience. Teach us to tell true stories, to hand down hope, and to labour for a future in which our children and our neighbours’ children can walk, wait, travel, learn, and worship with fewer obstacles and more joy.
Prayer points
- Help us to tell the next generation the truth about you: your mercy, your faithfulness, your patient care.
- Give perseverance to those working for long-term change where progress is slow and setbacks are common.
- Bless children and young people living with disability; grant good support, friendship, and delight.
- Give wisdom to leaders planning for the future, that the vulnerable are not forgotten in budgets and designs.
- Fix our hope on the better country you promise, and teach us to live now as pilgrims of that Kingdom.