Do you ever think what a miracle it is that we are alive? My dad’s dad was the last Brooks male in our line. Clarence and his wife had two sons, Bill and Jerald. Those guys had eight sons and a daughter between them. My three brothers and I have nine sons. There are six more sons in the next generation, and perhaps many more to come.
We threw a big party for my dad’s seventy-fifth birthday party. After we ate, my brothers and I spoke about our dad, telling stories from the time when we were growing up. Then dad spoke and recounted to his kids and grandkids the times in our family history when our own lineage might have been lost because of a storm and accidents. We loved celebrating dad and we gave thanks to God for his life and ours.
Noah’s three sons had children, too. The stories of their sons are recorded here. In this “table of nations,” we read first of Japheth’s descendants. Names like Gomer and Magog emerge again later in the story of scripture. Often these descendants gave their names to land that they settled. Today, we may live in towns named for Sam Houston or Stephen F. Austin. One of Japheth’s descendants was Tarshish. Did he establish the town to which Jonah later tried to flee? Roman historian Josephus later identified Tarshish with Tarsus of Cilicia, the Apostle Paul’s hometown.
Every life matters. More, what we do with our lives matters. Each of us leaves a footprint of sorts in the world everywhere we go. What will our legacy be? We can live our lives setting the broken world right, or we can make it even more messy. Free moral agency comes with a certain amount of responsibility. It is a miracle that we are alive. Generations to come will reflect on the lives we have lived. What will they say? C. T. Studd was correct: "we have only one life. ‘Twill soon be past. Only what is done for Christ will last.”
