What Are You Leaving Behind?

I have memories from when I was 9 years old of my father telling me stories about his first attempts at surfing. He talked his father into making him a wooden “surfer board”. He and his friends loaded up this board, in his dad’s truck and drove it to Huntington Beach. It seems that my dad’s surfer career was short-lived, as the first time they placed the board in the water it didn’t float. It was a funny story to me at the time. In 2014 my father went home to be with Jesus. He started living out his faith, passionately a few years before passing. I remember getting to spend the week with him before he passed. He needed to tell me everything he had arranged for us after he passed. He showed me all the things he bought that had value and told me who should get them. We knew he was dying and what seemed like a displaced conversation, was so fitting. I am reminded of this because I’ve been reading 1 Peter 1:3-5 3 

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, 4 and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. 5 And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see” (NLT).

There is no greater gift left to me by my father than his faith. Faith in Jesus Christ has given me peace in times when life seemed hectic. Joy through every trial. Love in times when all I wanted to return was vengeance. We have an inheritance given to us by our father that will not pass away. It is because of these truths that we as surfers need to do our best to leave something for those who come after us that will last and will not decay, Faith.