Your Most Precious Legacy

Dear Goldie

I’ve been reading Asian Beacon since you and your husband were the editors 40 years ago. I still read your column. You must have lived an interesting life. Can you share what you consider is the best legacy you’re leaving your family?

Interested

Dear Interested,

We’ve always been concerned about what legacy we want to leave not only to our children and grandchildren but to those whose lives are linked with ours. The most important thing we consider worth leaving is our faith in Jesus Christ because God’s blessings to those who love and obey Him go down thousands of generations. (Deut. 5:10)

What can be more precious and long-lasting than that?

We’ve seen the effects of this in our own family. My great-grandfather was one of the first Christian converts in Beijing. After his wife died, he could not take care of his young children. Out of desperation, he sent them to the Christian mission – something which horrified the villagers as rumour had it that the ‘foreign devils’ dug out children’s eyes to make medicine.

As a result of receiving benefits from the missionaries, the family’s social status improved. My mother had the opportunity to study in America because she could speak English, which she learnt from her father who was educated in the mission school. So from poor farmers in the village, after seven or eight generations, most of the family members became teachers, pastors, doctors, lawyers, etc.

God’s blessings on Tek and my life are not only in the social, material aspects but even more so in the spiritual realm. We’ve personally tasted His goodness, so our deepest desire is that all our family worship Him. We’ve brought up our daughters from young to love and serve God and today, they all do.

We claim Acts 16:31:

“Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved – you and your household.”

Several years ago, God gave me a specific promise:

“The children of Your servants will live in Your presence; their descendants will be established before You.” (Ps. 102:28)

And recently another promise:

“I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me.” (Is. 65:1)

I’m assured that the legacy of our precious faith will continue down the generations.

How do we pass on our faith? By prayer and by intentional teaching. When our first baby grandson visited us in Perth from Singapore, I made it a point to pray blessing on him from Numbers 6:26 every day for the two weeks of the visit. After returning to Singapore, my daughter wrote that Ryan was much happier and when he heard praise and worship songs, he would clap and raise his hands.

For years now, every night when Tek and I pray together, we pray for our children and their families that they will love God.

We watch out for teachable moments to instil Christian principles as Deut. 6:7 says:

“You will teach (about God) diligently to your children, and shall talk (about God) when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.”

Our granddaughter, Kirstyn, was angry with her older brother. When she came to spend the night and we were chatting on the bed, I told her, “He who angers you controls you. You must not let anyone control you. You must let only God control you.” I then shared with her how: forgive him, ask God to forgive her, then use the powerful spiritual weapon of Jesus’ name to cut off the unhappy event from her mind. She did this and found that it worked.

Catching teachable moments to instil godly principles will help them experience God’s power and goodness which will stand them in good stead into adulthood.

This is the legacy we hope will flow down the generations.