Today I received a gift in the mail. Mark Neuenschwander, who worked with my dad at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena in the 1970s, kindly sent me a Bible that Dad had given him years ago. It was originally presented to my dad in 1953, exactly sixty years ago. Although this Bible is beautifully leather-bound, it is designed as a five-ring binder. Pages can be inserted, like this sermon of my dad’s on Philippians 3. Bible and sermon notes, all in one. Nice.
Not only that, but interspersed throughout this Bible are marginal notes written in my dad’s hand. It gives me insight after insight into his personal walk with the Lord from the 1950s into the 1970s. What a treasure.
Maybe your dad wasn’t a man of God. Maybe your dad let you down. I hope that isn’t true. But if it is, let me ask you to consider this. By the grace of God, you can start a new tradition. You can be the man of God that your son needs today. And sixty years from now, someone might send your son an old Bible of yours, bearing witness to the reality of your walk with God. And your son will marvel at it, and be inspired by it, and he will probably follow you in that glorious path.