What's In Your Wallet?

This is a wonderful story for children because it is not only an adventure concerning four young men, but it takes them through situations in life that can provide some valuable lessons that parents, grandparents, school teachers, Sunday school teachers and others who impact their lives can use to build strong character in the children they teach.  

Throughout their journey they will meet obstacles, and their obedience to the instruction of their father or the disobedience of some of them change their journey for bad or good and in the process teach children to trust or that they should have trusted the wisdom of their fathers.  There is instruction for all of us in this story that could last a lifetime.

Most of us live relatively simply in this world and our lives are lived out day to day with our moms or dads and hopefully both.  This story concerns a father who has four sons and nothing is said of a wife or mother so it can safely be assumed that the wife died leaving the father to raise the sons alone.  The blessing is that the father was a great    man who cared about his sons and even though his resources were meager he did his best to provide something for them after he was gone.  That alone should be a lesson that every father should embrace simply as a matter of honor and integrity.  But there    are more lessons than that to learn as the story goes on.

Apart from our character as men and fathers we should want to leave something of value behind for our children that will stay with them and help them as they go through life.  

In this case the legacy the father was able to leave for them was his own strong character and a simple gift.  Well, the gift appeared to be simple on the outside but along the journey this gift turned out to be life saving for the sons.  What each son did with that gift is quite another story.  Here is a lesson of trust and obedience that each son could draw from on the journey.  What they learn comes hard for some of them but some wisely follow their father's instructions saving them from unnecessary suffering on their journey.

And so, as it is with all of us, the journey of life begins.  The sons buried their father and started out with their legacy in hand.  Like all of us, they had no idea what to expect or how long their journey would take.  They certainly didn't have a clue about what they would experience along the way, and they only had their father's final instructions as to what to do when they encountered obstacles along the way.  Every journey is different because everyone has different circumstances leading up to, and continuing on through that incredible journey through life.  There are many valuable lessons to be learned in every life, and how we respond to those lessons will largely determine how our lives will turn out.  For some life is harsh and leads to bitterness.  For others life is beautiful in spite of the obstacles and they conquer all that they encounter.  This story provides a strong lesson in both failure and victory at a level a child can understand.