Note: Following is a story I wrote and used in a sermon series entitled, “God’s Blueprint for the Home.” This particular sermon was preached on Sunday morning, August 19, 2018, entitled, “God in the Home.” I had several requests for a copy of the story and so decided to re-print it here for your use. Although names and details of the story have been changed to make it fictional, it describes what is actually occurring in the lives of many American families today. I hope you can prevent it from happening in your home and others…
Dick and Jane were engaged to get married. Like many American couples, they dreamed of owning a house together. They both worked long hours in their jobs to make it a reality. And they dreamed of having children and a family. But when God blessed them with children of their own, they didn’t stop to consider that these precious children were truly from God. As the children grew through early childhood, Dick and Jane did not take time for family devotionals, or Bible reading at bedtime.
When the kids were in school, their schedule was packed with frantic activities, which kept the whole family running constantly. There was no time for church, for family prayers, or for teaching the children the Bible. In school, the children heard very little about God and his word, and what they did hear was usually mockery or ridicule. As a result, they grew up with no real faith in God or understanding of his church at all.
The family went on camping trips, beach outings, even trips to popular resorts like Las Vegas, and learned to enjoy exotic vacations. When grandkids came along, they too were immersed in the busy, American lifestyle. The years went rapidly by, and Dick and Jane’s health eventually began to fail.
One evening, in the twilight of their lives, Dick and Jane sat quietly, reviewing their past. The children and grandchildren were long grown, and pursuing their own lives. As they thought about their lives and what they would leave to their children, a strange thought occurred to both of them almost simultaneously. They remembered going to Bible School when they were only children with their parents. They remembered their grandparents praying, and talking about God and his word.
They looked tearfully at one another as they both suddenly realized they had missed something very, very important in their lives, something more important then the house, the trips and all the vacations. Their children had no faith whatsoever, and their secular, amoral lifestyle was entirely centered upon materialism-the here and now.
That evening, when Dick and Jane went to bed for the night, they each dreamed of their own childhood, growing up in the church which they had left long ago. Their sleep and dreams were momentarily disrupted by a distant thunderstorm, and they thought about some faint passages of scripture that talked about Jesus coming again, and all people standing before God in judgment. For a time their hearts beat wildly, as the terror of those thoughts suddenly became real and sank into their consciousness. Were they in fact still living, or had they died and gone on to face God?
They shoved aside for the moment the haunting questions of what they had actually done with their lives and what they had left for their children of any spiritual, lasting importance.
And they cried as they realized the truth: Dick and Jane had done just exactly what millions of Americans do all the time: they had completely left God out of their lives.
-by Robert C. Veil, Jr.
