Fathers, if you and I bomb out on the most precious relationships in our lives, no amount of money in the bank can replace what we have lost.
A man who had made a ton of money the year before I met him sobbed as he told me how his 20-year-old daughter had cursed him, screaming her rejection of both him and his faith. Months later he was still devastated by the hatred in her angry words.
The same week another wealthy man told me his anguished tale. In the year when he retired from a lucrative corporate position, he and his wife had stood in a courtroom and watched through tears as their brilliant oldest son was sentenced to the penitentiary for embezzling municipal funds.
Both of these fathers gladly would have given up their considerable fortunes to have their children back on solid ground.
Warning about the awful emptiness that can curse a man who values his wealth more than the welfare of his family, the apostle Paul advises us that “godliness with contentment is great gain.” The fathers I’ve just told you about were far from content. They lived in torment, each of them wondering what had been amiss in their own values that disposed their offspring to go so sadly astray.
Let me tell you about a father who did a better job. His name was Patrick Henry. Back in fourth grade, if we were paying attention, we learned about that grand old patriot. The fellow who declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Remember? Did you know he was also a fine Christian father?
In Patrick Henry’s will, he made the usual provisions for the various members of his family into one, this piece of property, to another, this sum of money, and so forth. Then at the end of the will he wrote to his survivors:
“I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more that I wish I could give them: that is the Christian religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would have been rich; and if they had not that, and I had given them the world, they would be poor.”
Fathers, what are you leaving to your family?