The Persian Army attempted to invade and conquer Greece in 490 BC. As the people of Greece waited and worried about the Persian Army, the Battle of Marathon took place. When the battle was finally over, a Greek solider ran from Marathon to Athens to share the good news. The total length of that run was 26 miles and 385 yards, to tell the Greeks, not to worry. The Greek Army had won and the Persians were retreating back to their homeland. Having made the announcement, the soldier promptly keeled over and died. In 1896 someone, who probably never ran more than 26 feet, decided that a 26 mile and 385 yard race should become an Olympic Event. People who run marathons train for months and even years to run these types of events. 

Life is not a 100-meter dash. Life is a marathon. The only way to finish the race, the only way to run the course of life is to train and prepare for it. Most of us think that getting a good education, a high paying job, a great spouse, two children who will win all kinds of awards for softball, baseball, football, basketball, lacrosse, and track and field, drive a Cadillac Escalade, retire to a cabin in the mountains and leaving our children with a nice inheritance is what life is all about. The reality is that when they lower you into the ground, no one is going to give a rip about your education, your high paying job, the cabin in the mountains, the inheritance you left your children, or your Cadillac Escalade. Your children will stare into the hole with tears running down their cheeks and emptiness in their hearts. 

If you have not prepared your children for your death, you will have done nothing but leave your children with heartache because they will never see mom or dad again. You want to leave your children something that will give them peace, comfort, and hope. Then leave them with the faith! If parents are as serious about making their children as strong in the faith as winning a sports championship, then we have to give our children something that is more important than anything that will be put on a shelf, to collect dust, and left to rust. 

Parents do a good job preparing their children for earthly life but what about eternal life? If we, as parents, are as serious about bringing our children to Sunday school, attending youth activities on Wednesday and Sunday nights, helping them learn their memory work, completing their confirmation homework, and attending church with them to show them our own faith, we would be giving them something that no power on the earth, or in heaven, or in hell can ever take away from them. If parents are as serious about their children’s eternal faith life as they are about their children’s earthly life, you won’t leave them empty and broken when they put you in the ground. When your child watches the funeral director lowering your box into the ground without faith, your child will be saying, “Good bye.” But if you have given your children the gift of God’s grace through faith, when the funeral director lowers your box into the ground, they will be saying, “Thank you. See you soon.” How do you want to leave your children behind?

Veritas - Curt