My duty to the future of baseball

“When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,”
Proverbs 4:3

I don’t know that a day goes by where my dad doesn’t have some sort of influence on my life. And I don’t mean that he’s calling me up with advice all the time or showing up at my home. No, even if he’s not around, his influence is there. It’s the influence of someone who took raising me seriously.

If I play softball with friends, I use the batting stance he taught me. Same with tennis. If I listen to music, I know that my tastes began to develop from the radio in his car. When I go to a restaurant, it is almost undoubtedly a place to which I went with him first.

Those issues are trivial, but that influence goes a lot deeper. My father is a very honest, very honorable man. I like to think I was influence in that area too. I see his working habits, his focus, and his reactions in my own every day.

When Solomon became king, he asked God for wisdom, and that wisdom was granted. Was that a sudden influx of wisdom, or had God placed Solomon on a path from birth to seek wisdom more than the normal man? By the very fact that Solomon was wise and humble enough to ask for wisdom suggests to me that he already had quite a bit of it.

The foundations of his hunger for wisdom is revealed here. Solomon, right in the middle of giving his son advice, pauses to recall a time with his parents, when he was the beloved son, listening to his own father, David.

And you know what? The advice David will give him in the following verses sounds a lot like the advice Solomon would later give his own son.

See, the issue here isn’t just about a father trying to guide his son. It is that, of course, but it is more. The issue is about God’s people influencing generations to come. It’s about David’s commitment to the Lord, and how that translated through Solomon and down the line.

When I teach my son, if God sees fit to give me one, a batting stance, it’s going to look a lot like my dad’s. My grandson’s stance will probably be pretty close as well. Those things we teach our kids don’t just last as long as Little League does, but continues through time. What I teach my kids about God may one day results in generations of people devoted to the Lord. That commitment might bring about missionaries, pastors, or evangelists. I may meet hundreds in heaven that were influenced by my commitment to teach my son about Jesus.

Or, if I don’t say anything at all, it may result in generations of lost people.

And people today wonder why it’s really important to have a father around? I tell you the truth – this world is going to feel the effects of our fatherless generation for centuries.

It matters. It matters beyond just your son what you decide to give him.

In the same way, Jesus came down from Heaven with the truth of His Father. It was His influence here that began everything. His death on the Cross means salvation for all who repent and believe. When we believe, we become adopted sons of the Father, who will teach us as a Father should. Through the Holy Spirit, we will grow and mature in Him. That heavenly influence spreads through the generations and over the nations, blanketing the earth with Grace. If you have not, turn to Him, repenting of all that time you only sought your own pleasure rather than His Glory.