TIP 51. HOW WILL YOU BE REMEMBERED?
I think one of the more beneficial times I have had in my life was also perhaps one of the strangest. As a Christian minister I had to perform numerous funerals, both for those in my congregation and for those whom I had never met previously. There is a saying about two things you can be sure of in life, being 'Death and Taxes' and although I can't help you with the taxes part this teaching may assist you in making sure that your life and your death are one worthy of remembrance.
One of the things that always struck me was the words that people had inscribed upon their headstone, a lasting epitaph to a life lived. So one day I went down to a local cemetery and spent a few hours looking at the headstones, reading the words that loving family members had written and considering how I wanted to be remembered after I had left this earth. It was a sobering time in my life and a time where I began to really identify the things that were important to me personally.
As a father I expect and hope that my children will survive long after me and that there will be generations of grandchildren and great grandchildren that will follow. This I believe is what we all want as fathers, but the question I ask is "How will you be remembered by your children?"
Will it be the memory be of a father that never really had time for them, or a father that ran the family like it was a concentration camp? Or in the years to come will our children recall 'all the wonderful loving times we shared together as a family', and 'the deep sincerity of our father's love for us?'
We don't really have total control over how we will be remembered by our children, but we do have an opportunity each day to invest in 'loving and serving our family faithfully and preparing them both for this life, and heaven to come.' Parenting in our modern age is rarely easy, but the time and energy we invest into our family life will reap rewards that can last for generations.
Dads' Call To Action:
Take the time to look ahead 100 years from now and consider how you would like to be remembered. Allow your conclusion to motivate you in pursuing things that are truly worthwhile.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;