Vanity of Vanities

In the early ’90s in our little country church in the basement of someone's house, my dad taught through the book of Ecclesiastes. Over the course of a few months as we went verse by verse through the book, we looked on in horror at the pointlessness that Solomon concludes our lives hold: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
By the time Dad was through with the study, the spiritual temperature of the church was . . . odd. We were left with the troubling question, “What is the point if it's all vain anyway?” Which was, of course, exactly where the Spirit wanted us.
About that time we found the video Ee-Taow. It told the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ transforming a people group on the other side of the world, and we clung to it like a lifeline! This is not vain! This has value! It has weight that is eternal in scope! As I look back, I realize how much we all changed when we caught an eternal vision. Because “Where there is no vision, the people perish . . .”
Saints, your children need more from you than good grammar and good manners. Christians are, without exception, ambassadors, soldiers of the cross, marching onward to victory in Jesus. We need to live that way in front of our kids. We need to bring our children alongside us as we take the gospel victoriously to the nations of the world, because if we don't have a vision to do this, the people—our children—will perish.