This morning I czeched out the Desiring God blog and learned that John Piper’s father had recently passed away. You can read Piper’s journal entry that he wrote following his father’s death on the DGM blog, click here. I really appreciate that Dr. Piper would allow this journal entry to be posted. Why? Because it inspired me as a young man to be mindful of how I am living now and how, Lord-willing, I will live in the future as the Lord may bless me with a wife and kids. What type of things will my son say about me after he is at my bed side as I pass? Will he be able to say something similar to what John Piper said? Here are two paragraphs that made me think:
Thank you, Daddy. Thank you for sixty-one years of faithfulness to me. I am simply looking into his face now. Thank you. You were a good father. You never put me down. Discipline, yes. Spankings, yes. But you never scorned me. You never treated me with contempt. You never spoke of my future with hopelessness in your voice. You believed God’s hand was on me. You approved of my ministry. You prayed for me. Everyday. That may be the biggest change in these new days: Daddy is no longer praying for me.
I look you in the face and promise you with all my heart: Never will I forsake your gospel. O how you believed in hell and heaven and Christ and cross and blood and righteousness and faith and salvation and the Holy Spirit and the life of holiness and love. I rededicate myself, Daddy, to serve your great and glorious Lord Jesus with all my heart and with all my strength. You have not lived in vain. Your life goes on in thousands. I am glad to be one.
