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While watching Mom and Dad’s minivan drive away from our home, I was reminded once again how incredibly rich Christa and I are. We and our babies are part of a tremendous legacy of godliness and faithfulness, a legacy given to us   by both her parents and mine.

I think about it all the time, in part because I want so badly to ensure that the soul-treasure which    is this legacy gets passed along to my own kids and their kids and their kids. In fact, I tell young couples all the time that though being married is a profoundly great blessing, one of the great responsibilities they have as a couple is not living for the moment, but investing in generations they will never see.

In short, they must leave a legacy.

Observing my parents and Christa’s parents throughout the years leads me to offer a few ingredients in what I would call a recipe for a rich legacy. Consider what is penned below:

First, Christa’s parents and mine are profoundly Christ-centered people. Everything in their lives is about the dignity and honor of the person of Jesus. Theirs is no lip-service Christianity. Indeed, the person of Jesus Christ defines our parents. There is absolutely no way you will spend ten minutes with either of our parents and not know they are madly in love with Jesus, and willing to lay down their lives for him. Because this is so, everything else they do and are is shaped by this simple premise: Jesus is the Master of their lives.

Secondly, our fathers are totally committed to the well-being and care of our mothers, and they do so with joy, patience, humility, and purpose. Now, Christa’s father, having been a widower, is remarried to a woman who herself had been widowed. Yet the care he gives her is very much the same care he extended to Christa’s mom; a care exemplified during her mother’s multi-year struggle with Alzheimer’s, during which time he waited on her hand and foot. Likewise, my father dotes on my mother as if they were just beginning to date (they just celebrated their forty-second anniversary!). Contemplating this brings to mind the wise counsel of one of my best friends, Jim Cassidy, who has drilled into me throughout the years that the greatest gift I can give to my daughters is to love their mommy exceedingly well. Oh that more fathers would own this. Christa’s dad and mine do, and for this we are incredibly grateful.

Thirdly, our moms hold us (or have held us, as the case could be) loosely. We are not theirs to own. We belong to the Master, the Lord Jesus. This was exemplified recently when my mom communicated to one of us sons that should we go overseas to a particularly dangerous part of the world, and were we even to die, she would have peace knowing that we were doing precisely what it was the Lord Jesus wanted us to be doing. Not that she wouldn’t hurt, but she would trust and have peace. Why? Again . . . because we were the Master’s, and she knows in the end we belong first and foremost to him.

Fourthly, our parents believe in us, and are proud. It is sad that this so rare, but it is. I have had many moments (one is too many) with someone who has told me that he or she has never–never!–heard mom or dad communicate pride or pleasure regarding him or her. This is absolutely appalling, and for the life of me I do not understand why parents refuse to give this blessing to their kids. I can say with great gratitude that some of the most difficult and even darkest challenges of my life have been met with the fullest expression of pride and belief given to me from my mom and dad. They tell us these things. They show us these things. They tell others these things. It runs off of them and flows upon us, carving deep crevices upon the landscape of our souls.

Fifthly, and related to the previous one, they tell us they love us. All the time, not just occasionally. And with deep meaning, not just tritely. If there is one thing worse than the aforementioned refusal to bless, it is parents that never tell their kids they love them. Many times have I said “I love you” to some dear man or woman, young or old, only to hear in return a mournful and somewhat sobered, “Why, I’ve never heard anybody tell me that in my entire life–even my parents.” Or, if that is not bad enough, too often have I heard someone say to me, “I heard my father tell you he loved you. He’s never once said that to me.” And yet, Christa and I hear it regularly, nearly daily; or we see it in emails, cards, etc. It permeates our lives. We cannot escape it. I have no idea what it would be like to not have such a blessing.

I could go on and on. I could talk about how they free us to be ourselves, expecting us to do only that and nothing less. I could mention how they remain willing to do anything for us, and yet are not in any way intrusive. I could speak to how they motivate us to look forward, keeping our heads high and our hearts wide open to all that God desires for us. I could also tell you how they defend us, tell us what we need to hear when we need to hear it, listen to us when no one else will, and, most importantly, how they intercede for us daily in prayer.

Ingredients for a godly legacy? Absolutely! And our lives are forever changed, shaped, and made full because it is so.