OUR INHERITANCE

Over my years of ministry I have seen some serious family fights, thankfully very few. But the ones I observed from the sidelines were doozies. Those fights for the most part revolved around the family inheritance: who gets what; why one sibling gets more than another; etc. Those fights have split families apart. And sometimes that division was never healed to the detriment of all involved.

The sad part is that none of those squabbling over the inheritance did anything to earn that inheritance. It was being bestowed on them by the one who actually earned enough and gained enough possessions to actually leave something for those who lived on after they themselves passed on. They should have been thankful for what they received and not angry for what they did not. But they weren’t.

Sometimes we miss that truth, that being that we have done nothing to inherit what someone has decided to bestow on us. That is especially true when we think about our personal life of faith. There is a part of us, in fact part of too much preaching and teaching that eternal life is our inheritance because we have done something to earn it. In fact, it is said, that we actually have to do something to inherit the life to come. Not so. That life is God’s free gift to us.

What we have inherited is this life. It is God’s gift to us through our parents, through birth. The same question that is asked of those who inherit something from someone who has died is the same question God asks of us and we have to ask of ourselves: what are we doing with what we have inherited? What are we doing with this life that is now in our hands?

That is the ongoing question that we should be asking ourselves and asking daily. In a way, I suspect, if there is any question God might ask of us once we are given God’s everlasting gift to us which, again, we have not inherited, is what we have done with what we actually inherited: our life in this world that has no come to an end. If you are like me, the answer given may not be so reassuring.

When we have received an inheritance in this life, our goal should be to use that gift to the best of our ability so that it will be pleasing to the one who left it to us. We want our parents to be proud of us even though they are no longer with us. We always told our kids not to do anything they would be ashamed to tell us about. So, come that final day, we should not be ashamed to tell God about this life we have inherited. Will we?