Dennis Peacocke comments

Dennis Peacocke

What do you most want to pass on to your children when you die? Is it your home, your cars, your accumulated fortune? No, you're more spiritual than that; you want to leave your faith or your testimony in God. As helpful as both our natural and spiritual legacies may be to our children, in a particular sense, they are both of secondary value. Permit me to share why.

First, if we are of the mindset to leave something for our children at our dying, we have already missed the opportunity to give them the most valuable possession we have. That gift cannot be given at death because it is only transferable while we are living. It is the gift of showing them how to approach, relate to, and solve life's problems. The nature of life is that it is filled with problems, and we are required to respond to them, like it or not. How we respond is what makes the difference between a life of sullen acceptance, devoid of real hope, or a life of growing victory and confidence in knowing that your trials have become your best teachers. Properly understanding the causes of life's problems and how to redemptively respond to them, I submit, is the greatest gift we can give to our posterity. Material things come and go, and none of us can live off someone else's testimony. What I want to give my children is being forged daily-how to live amidst the pressures of life.

While our salvation is secured by Christ, I observe that many, many, "saved" people live poorly in terms of appropriating a Christian response to life's challenges in the here and now. We have been taught far more about our hope in glory and future ease than how to live in hope on Earth. Few have been instructed how, through Christ's Spirit, to pull the eternal into the temporal. It's wonderful to be assured of my future place in Christ, but it's even better to be living in its reality now. I am not as concerned with giving my children my faith in God and a heavenly afterlife as I am pressed to give them a life example that demonstrates God breaking into the here-and-now from His place outside of time. How do we do that? By appropriating God's perspective and His power and showing our children how to use them both in real life.

Have I taught my children to analyze intelligently and apply wisdom in dealing with the three primary sources of life's problems: 1) sin, 2) God's pressures to produce growth, and 3) Satan's resistance to kill our faith? How much is this wisdom and joy of victorious living worth? It does more than help get them to heaven. Indeed, it brings a measure of Heaven to them on Earth now. Have I taught my children to persevere because I persevere and seek counsel in both God's Word and God's people? What exactly am I giving them, a "faith" or an example? Am I teaching them to analyze problems prayerfully and strategically so that they are capable of asking the right questions? Have I taught them to know where to look for the appropriate tools to use on their problem? Are they cutting with saws and not hammers? Are they trying to drive nails with saws because I have not taught them the value and necessity of finding the right tools to solve problems?

My friend, I don't need to convince you that what we pass on to our children is of the utmost importance. We know that Christ is pressing heavily upon us to wisely invest in our children. May the Holy Spirit teach us as parents how to sort out the temporary from the eternal, and the religious slogans from the proven life examples!

Reprinted by permission. This article is excerpted from Dennis Peacocke's book "The Emperor Has No Clothes" available at www.gostrategic.org