Watching my children grow up significantly at this point in my life has been one of the greatest blessings the Lord has given me. There was a point of time when I was just there but not present, and even after having much of my proclivities taken from me, my attention became so work-focused that, again, I was physically there but could often become so emotionally and unknowingly not present. My son Christiano is nine, and at that age where, he wants to play sports. This year, he began to wrestle; he knows I love wrestling, but I am not sure if he wants to do it or do it because it is something he knew I did when I was younger. It is always funny, and I say now when he says, “Dad, I want to be like you,” while it is endearing to me, I want him to be nothing like me; it is such a low bar to hit. I want him to always aim toward Jesus.
Growing up, I remember having the mindset; the idea of striving to be like Jesus was never even a thought in my mind, a possibility to aim towards; it was just not a concept taught in my house; it makes sense why I had developed so many habits and thought processes that I have. Anyway, this year, he could not wrestle for Sterling with our schedule, so I took him to Maple Shade, where I grew up, and one of his matches was at the high school where I went as well as my brother. I thought nothing of it, but when we went in for his match, he was looking around at the banners, and he saw his last name and said, Dad, who is that? I said that’s your uncle Mike’s name on there for cross country state champs, and then said Dad Who’s that. I said I was up there for the district wrestling champion, which was a big deal for him. He then said Dad, I want to have my name up on a wall one day and to be honest, I thought back to when I was a kid and can remember how the aim, my target, and my focus was on being remembered by the people of the world, to run the race that was to be given a reward by a near school or man and how my whole life I was deceived to thinking it was all about having my name to be remembered for something meaningless in life. I did not want my children to make the same mistake.
The scripture reminds us of the most crucial place to have our name written: the Book of Life.
Revelation 20: 12-15 “12 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before [a]God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. 14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second [b]death. 15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Revelation 21:27 “But there shall by no means enter it anything [a]that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life”.
It was a great moment to teach my son that this is all meaningless, sports are fun, and winning may feel good, but in the end, none of it matters; it’s all about Jesus and our glorifying Him in whatever He calls you to do. I understand it is not easy for a 9-year-old to always digest this. Still, I will say a few weeks later, we went to Dave and Buster’s, and Joshua who is five said thanks you’re the best dad and Christiano said, “Josh, he is the best dad because he follows Jesus, not because he took us to Dave and Buster’s, there are a lot of dads that do great things, but they do not follow Jesus. Dana and I looked at each other with a laugh, but I said he was grasping what this was all about praise the Lord for where he was already in his walk.
So I ask, where do you see your name?
Frank D.