Pictured: Willie Wales, 1897 – 1985.
What is your greatest joy? Good grades? Good friends? Traveling? Winning? Achieving? Finishing?
The question is easier if you are a parent—because a parent’s greatest joy concerns children. You will have other joys—but children will dominate the top of the list.
The Apostle John probably wrote the letter of Third John in the city of Ephesus in 100 A.D., the year he died at age 96.
What would a man of 96 consider his greatest joy in life? Particularly a man who was a disciple and apostle of Jesus? What would his wisdom value as life’s greatest joy? The aging saint’s greatest joy should probably be ours as well.
“I was thrilled when brothers came and testified to your faithfulness—how you are walking in the truth. I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in the truth” 3 John 4.
At the end of his amazing life, John’s greatest joy is to know his children are walking in the truth.
They read the word, study the word, believe the word, obey the word, and submit their views on every subject to the word of God. These are not people who got saved and forgot about Jesus. These are servants of God. They are devoted, dedicated believers who will take on any challenge to walk with Christ. As Hebrews says, “men of whom the world was not worthy” Hebrews 11:38.
The last time I saw my grandfather (‘Paw Paw’), he was 88. He looked at Dennis and me from his sick bed and said, “Well. You boys be good.”
It was a simple blessing, but I’ll never forget it. Our short, weekend visit was ending and he knew we would not see him again in this life. And he also knew what mattered. And in his own Southern, down-home way, he was saying “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
I feel exactly the same way!
ΑΩ
P.S. The opposite is probably true: a parent’s greatest sorrow is to see his children walking in lies, and slowly destroying themselves.
Household Words: 