Will Our Children Find Us Faithful?

On my car radio the other day, I heard Steve Green’s song, “Find Us Faithful.” It’s an oldie but a goodie in my opinion! Let me share with you one of the verses and the chorus:

Verse:

After all our hopes and dreams have come and gone
And our children sift through all we’ve left behind
May the clues that they discover and the memories they uncover
Become the light that leads them to the road we each must find

Chorus:

Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful
May the fire of our devotion light their way
May the footprints that we leave
Lead them to believe
And the lives we live inspire them to obey

The line “And our children sift through all we’ve left behind” reminded me of an episode we had just watched in our home of Little House on the Prairie (another oldie but goodie!). Charles Ingalls had a good friend die, and this man’s children sold his farm. To Charles nothing remained by which to remember the man except his grave. Charles is concerned the same will happen to him and looks for a way to leave a legacy. He is asked to go into business making hand crafted tables and thinks this will accomplish his goal. He moves to the big city to try it out before moving his family. He works day and night and makes a lot of money. Then a local furniture factory sees his success, copies his table design, and starts selling the tables for a lot less. Charles’s success is short-lived and he goes out of business. At the end of the episode Charles states,

You want to know why I started all this, all this working? Because I wanted to be remembered. To have my initials on some piece of furniture. I wanted strangers to remember me. I didn't even give my own children a chance to remember me. With the way I was, they would never even know me.

Charles realized his most important legacy is his children. Amen! I echo with Steve Green, “May the fire of our devotion light their way.” May we not doubt and be “like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6) but instead live out this truth, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16, emphasis mine).

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth shared with me that in her class at school the teacher read a book that said dinosaurs lived zillions of years ago. Elizabeth said she raised her hand but the teacher didn’t call on her. If she had, Elizabeth said, “I was going to tell her that dinosaurs didn’t live zillions of years ago because the earth is only 6,000 years old.” I knew this time would eventually come, and I wondered how Elizabeth would respond. Praise God for the legacy that I am leaving her, the legacy my mother left with me, and that my grandmother left with my mother and so on! The ministry I have at AiG is very important to me, but far more important is the ministry to Elizabeth in our home. What are you doing to start or continue a legacy with your children—whether it is children in your home, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, or those at church and in your neighborhood? I hope that you’ll check out some of our great resources for kids to help you get started. Check out Buddy Davis’s new DVD, I Dig Dinosaurs.

Keep fighting the good fight of the faith!