What Are You Building That Will Outlive You?

Dear Christian Father,

I am writing to you because I know something about the man you are trying to become. You want to provide for your family, protect them, give your children opportunities, and make your life count. I understand because I have spent much of my life learning how to build—a career, businesses, organizations, relationships, and influence.

But after years of building, God brought me to a question that changed the way I think about my life, my faith, my family, and my legacy:

What are you building that will outlive you?

That question began with my father.

My father became a trusted leader, serving as a union steward and eventually as the chief president of the union. People came to him when they felt overlooked or unheard. He was strong without being harsh, courageous without being reckless, and firm without being disrespectful. Never had a strike on his watch.

One day, he said something to me that I would carry for the rest of my life:

“Maybe in your lifetime, you can change the culture.”

I spent years trying to do exactly that.

I worked in major corporations, led organizations, served in ministry, built businesses, and worked with leaders around the world. I learned how to work hard, solve problems, lead people, and pursue excellence. I became very good at success.

But eventually, God showed me that before He could use me to change the culture around me, He had to change the culture within me.

I had learned to connect achievement with significance. I believed that hard work would produce success, and success would produce significance. Without realizing it, I brought that same mindset into my relationship with God. I was striving, proving, performing, and trying to measure up.

Then God began teaching me about grace.

Around the beginning of the new millennium, I found myself in my basement asking God, “How can You use me?” That question became a deeper lesson in humility, surrender, and dependence. I began to understand that human striving may produce achievement, but only God’s grace produces transformation.

That transformation changed the way I saw fatherhood.

I realized my children didn’t simply need what I could accomplish for them. They needed what I could intentionally pass to them.

They needed my example. They needed to see prayer, repentance, forgiveness, humility, courage, and grace. They needed to see a faith that wasn’t simply something I talked about on Sunday, but something that shaped how I lived every day.

That realization eventually led to my family discipleship book; Do Your Children Believe? and to my work with Victorious Family. I became convinced that parents are primary spiritual leaders in the home and that we must intentionally pass our faith from one generation to the next. Buy book Do Your Children Believe?

Christian father, your children may inherit your name, possessions, education, and accomplishments. But what are they inheriting from your faith?

What will remain in them because of you?

That is the legacy question.

Spiritual legacy isn’t usually built in one dramatic moment. It is built through ordinary moments—a conversation at the dinner table, a prayer before bed, a question in the car, an apology when you’re wrong, a decision to forgive, or a moment when your children see you depend upon Christ.

Those moments become the culture of your home.

My father told me, “Maybe in your lifetime, you can change the culture.”

Today, I understand those words differently.

The first culture I was called to change wasn’t a corporation, an organization, or a community.

It was the culture of my own home.

And perhaps that is where your greatest opportunity begins too.

Your career will eventually end. Your title will belong to someone else. Your possessions will pass to another generation.

But what you intentionally establish in the hearts of your children can continue long after you are gone.

So, Christian father, let me ask you the question I have had to ask myself:

What are you building that will outlive you?

Not simply, what will your children receive from you?

But:

What will remain in them because of you?

You don’t have to be a perfect father. You don’t have to have all the answers. You simply have to begin.

Open the Bible. Pray with your children. Ask questions. Listen. Tell them what God is teaching you. Let them see your faith in action.

Success can build a life. But only intentional faithfulness can build a spiritual legacy.

Christian father, don’t wait.

Change the culture. Start at home.

Do Your Children Believe?

Home – Victorious Family