Family Traits

   "God's grace turns out men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ."

   When I read Chambers this morning, my thoughts went back to my writing from yesterday. Thinking about ancestors, I wonder what family traits have been passed down to my children from them. Since the Schumann family was a part of Mayre's family tree, they do not have a physical bearing on me, as they could on my kids.

   Leaving aside physical characteristics, people also pass along values and other intangibles to their offspring, some good and some not. Future generations are affected in ways that are sometimes traceable. As a father, I do things that my dad did, just as he did before me. It is scary to think that my kids also do this, and maybe I should have given more thought to some of the ideas and actions that I modeled to them.

   As a Christian, I should have in my life those family traits of Jesus. How about those "fruits of the Spirit" as Paul speaks of in Galatians?

   "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23)

   Now I know that my daughter sometimes has a problem of confusing truth with fiction on her dad, but I would like to share the last paragraph of what she wrote on Father's Day in her blog.

   "There are a lot of remarkable dads who deserve tributes on this Father's Day, including the one sitting next to me in the living room, the father of my amazing children, who deserves so much credit for their optimism and accomplishments. But I hope they will all forgive me if I put them second to the man who raised me and believed in me. Dad, it's not just Father's Day obligation when I say you're the best. It's just the truth."

   I am proud of my kids, all three of them.They are the best and have done much worthy of mention, but the question in my mind today is how much is the Heavenly Father proud of me? How many of the family traits of Jesus have I exhibited and passed down?

   The answers to those questions are very sobering.