On my second flight, I met an 18 year old traveling to Wisconsin also. This was the flight from Charlotte to Chicago.
I know if I don’t start the convo, on a flight, as soon as I sit down it won’t happen. That’s with most people.
So I jumped right in and found out all about him. He graduated from high school in COVID season. He is going to visit his paternal grandparents. He has a brother and sister and his parents are still together. He wants to go to college for mechanical engineering. His dad liked cars so he liked cars. Him and his brother would work on cars with his dad.
TT: It’s amazing the effect parents can have on us.
I asked if he had any faith. He said “no” but explained he did go to Catholic school a little bit. I asked if his parents had faith. He said his mom had some like reading at mass, but his dad not any.
It’s amazing the effect parents can have on us.
I shared with him how my life was radically changed in college. That I was also raised Catholic but never practiced anything. That it didn’t mean anything to me. I shared how I heard the gospel when I was 22 and proceeded to include the gospel in my testimony.
TT: In college, people’s lives change either for the good or for the bad.
He concurred.
I asked his name. He said “Paul.” I said “Oh! Do you know the story of Paul?” He didn’t. I said “His life got radically transformed like mine.”
Though he didn’t seem THAT interested in our convo…I trust that a seed was planted. I tried to imagine what this convo would do. I hope one day, when he is in college, he will get invited to a Bible study or someone will approach him like Tim Brown did to me….and he will remember this flight.
He will know God is calling him.
And that was my window of time with Paul. He went on to play on his phone the rest of the time.
Parents, you get your windows of time. Your children will emulate you. What will you pass on to them? Your children will emulate what you teach them and what you don’t teach them. He knew all about cars and showed me a picture of his car…but he knew nothing of the God who created him.
What will we leave our children with? I could have left Paul with some woman who sat beside him with her headphones in like he doesn’t exist. I could have left him with a talk about the importance of schooling. But I left him with the gospel.
Revival is coming out of the family unit. When that is restored and done Biblically, we will see lasting revival. First comes marriage, then comes the children.
He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which He commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. Psalm 78: 5-7 (Key to revival)
