What am I making into a life lesson for my sons?

After living fifty-nine years, I realize that the greatest lessons my father gave me, whether through his life or through his words, boil down to two things: not complaining about the circumstances given to me, and not resisting people. When I was young, I did not see those things in my father as lessons. I sometimes felt ashamed of them, thinking they were signs of weakness or lack. But now that I have lived this much of life, and especially because the environment I have lived in was not one where I could avoid being treated unfairly by people, I realize that those things were important lessons for my life. More than that, they have become my temperament, my character, or even my own personality, and they are still alive and moving within me. For these lessons alone, I am thankful to my father. In that sense, my father is the mentor who has had the greatest influence on my life.

When my sons have lived as long as I have now, what great lesson will clearly come to their minds from the life and teachings of their father? It may not necessarily be the same as what I intended, so it is not easy for me to guess what it will be. Besides, it is not something I can judge from my side. My sons themselves will think about it as they look back on their own lives. But whether they can think of it clearly or not, those lessons will already have become part of their temperament, character, or philosophy of life. When such things gather from generation to generation, they become the spirit of a family. And from there, they may even become greatness or achievement. How then can we say this is not important?

What am I making into a life lesson for my sons? It may not turn out the way I intentionally try to make it. Children see not only the efforts of their parents, but also their disappointments. So what I can say is only this question: “Am I living in such a way that my life may leave some lesson for my sons, and for later generations who have seen me closely?” Since my thoughts and my life may not always be the same, I want to speak carefully and humbly.

I hope that when my sons reach around the age I am now, they will be able to see through my life that I tried to live by keeping purity and cleanness in all things. Since I was young, I have believed that it is important to have no falsehood in anything. When I studied the teachings of Jesus, what first and most deeply moved me was the truth that the heart is the foundation of all His teachings, and that hypocrisy is the opposite of Jesus’ teaching and will come under judgment. I felt a kind of trembling, as if God was approving a life philosophy I had tried to keep since I was young. And today, as I approach sixty, I still try to live by keeping purity in everything.

What I mean by purity is that my words and my heart are one, and that the righteousness shown by my actions and the righteousness of my actual heart are one. The first is honesty, and this is easy enough to understand. But the depth of the second is not easy even to understand, much less to keep. To explain it simply, when people see a person’s action, they usually believe that the intention commonly implied by that action exists in the heart of the person doing it. Of course, a person whose heart is twisted, or someone who already knows the hypocritical character of the person acting, may not easily accept that person’s intention. But regardless of another person’s judgment, human action generally assumes some commonly recognized intention and serves to express that intention to others. We usually believe that a smile expresses a kind heart, waving a hand expresses peace, and giving money or food to a poor person expresses a merciful heart. Perhaps purity means that the commonly understood intention expressed by an action and the actual intention of the person doing it are the same. In this sense, purity can be called sincerity in all things.

If someone says, “I love you,” then love must be in that person’s heart for that love to be true, and for that person to be pure. What can be misunderstood even more easily than words is an action done without directly revealing one’s intention. If a person worships God, then within that act there must be the spirit of God, and love and devotion toward God. If a person sits in a place of worship with a serious expression, but the spirit and heart God desires are not in that person, then that act is not being done for the original purpose of worship. It is being done for some other purpose. When another purpose is mixed in, that is impurity. It is not purity. Therefore, judgment must inevitably reveal the intentions of a person’s heart (1 Corinthians 4:5; Hebrews 4:12).

If my sons can see and learn through my life that we must live by keeping purity, and that a life lived that way is a beautiful life, then I will not have lived my life wrongly. But more important than my sons’ evaluation of my life is that this lesson lives inside them and becomes the foundation of a precious tradition in our family. As I read the cards my sons wrote for Father’s Day, I felt thankful and relieved that my two sons do not seem to have a negative view of their father’s life. I am ashamed, but I am also proud.

If God, who searches and knows all things, even to the number of hairs on the heads of all His children, caused me from my youth to think about purity, to be trained in it, and further, to be able to keep it, then this must surely be God’s calling for me. It is a calling to keep purity, to shine light into the world through it, and to give glory to God. Since the first people who will receive that light, and the ones closest to me, are my sons, this calling is ultimately also a calling for our family. I want to fulfill that calling to the end.

On Father’s Day, 2026