Examples Lived Before Them

(A] Allan Emery Allen C. Emery was a successful businessman who also served as an officer for many evangelical organizations, such as board chairman of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. For years he and his wife have hosted a Bible club at their Massachusetts church that draws up to one hundred young people each week. In his book A Turtle on a Fencepost, Emery writes, “Today I find myself still asking myself, ‘What would daddy do?’ when confronted with those decisions in business and in life that are so often not black and white, but gray.

I am in debt to the memorymaking efforts that my father made to imprint indelibly upon my mind the meaning of integrity.” Emery remembers his dad as a man who valued honesty in all the affairs of life. “Once [my dad] lost a pair of fine German binoculars. He collected insurance only to find the binoculars a year later.

Immediately he sent a check to the company and received a letter back stating that this seldom occurred and that they were encouraged. It was a small thing, but children never forget examples lived before them.”’ [B] Don Wyrtzen In the book, What My Parents Did Right, musician Don Wyrtzen tells how his father,Jack Wyrtzen, founder of Word of Life, taught him a hard lesson about honesty.

Don writes of attending his father’s evangelistic rallies in New York’s Times Square. “One time a Jewish friend named Jimmy and I decided that we would ride the subways. Instead of buying a 15-cent token to get on the subway, we went underneath the turnstiles. Later that night in the car, Jimmy and I were bragging to my dad how we had ridden all over New York City without paying for our subway tokens.

Becoming very serious, Dad explained to us that that was cheating. He had me write a letter to the New York City Port of Authority, apologize to them, and tape some change to a card to pay what I owed. That memory sticks out in my mind. Dad felt that being honest in little things was exceedingly important, and he wasn’t going to let an opportunity to teach me this slip by.

I have been grateful for his tough lessons since.”2 [q Henry Bosch Devotional writer Henry G. Bosch once wrote in Our Daily Bread that when he was a boy he would often work with his father during the summer months.

Leaving home each morning, they would stop at a particular store for a newspaper which they read at coffeebreak. One day, arriving at work, Henry’s dad discovered that he had taken two papers by mistake because they were so thin.

After a moment’s thought, he decided to return to the store immediately to pay for the extra paper. “I don’t want the owner, who isn’t a Christian, to think I’m dishonest,” said Mr. Bosch. About a week later, some expensive items were shoplifted -ANONYMOUS = ◊ = from the same store.

The police calculated that at the time of the robbery only two men had been shopping in the store-Mr. Bosch and another man. “I know John is honest,” said the storekeeper. ‘Just last week he came all the way back here to return a newspaper he’d taken by mistake:• The police questioned the other man instead and, in so doing, apprehended the culprit who made a full confession.

“Father’s honesty and Christian character . . . not only made a deep impression on the storekeeper,” Henry later wrote, “but his actions also left an indelible mark upon my young and pliable mind.” (D] Robert I. Brandt Robert Brandt is a doctor in Pennsylvania who took his sons camping one night and by the campfire told them this story: About a hundred years ago there was a man who worked in a stone quarry who was injured by a sliding boulder. His foot was crushed.

He was dirt poor, and he feared losing his job for he had children in diapers and a pregnant wife. Because he couldn’t afford a horse, he had to walk everywhere; so his injured foot was a constant, throbbing trial. A few days later, on payday, he limped to the general store for groceries, then hobbled home.

When he pulled his receipt from his pocket, he discovered that he had been given too much change. What should he do? As his worried wife watched from the kitchen doorway, he began limping every searing step back to the store to return the change. After Dr.

Brandt had told that story to his children, he asked them, “What do you think, guys? Did he do the right thing? Was that trip necessary?” The boys quickly offered several alternatives, but after a spirited discussion they concluded that he had done the right thing.

Then the boys slid down into their sleeping bags as the fire died down. Only then did Dr.

Brandt tell them the rest of the story. “The young father who worked in the stone quarry never became rich, but he lived a long, happy and honorable life.

Before he died, he had passed his values in honesty to his children and his grandchildren. Even his great-grandchildren still hear about his honesty.” “Where did you hear that stone-man story anyway, Dad?” asked Roger. “When I was just a boy about your age, I heard it from a kind old man sitting in a rocking chair with a cane between his knees.

I sat spellbound as he rocked, slowly spinning his cane as he told me that story-about himself He was my grandfather, and your great-grandfather!”1 1 Robert I. Brandt, “A Heritage of Honesty,” Decision Magazine, July-August 1991, 8-9. 2Corrie Ten Boom, In My Father’s House (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1976), 59 3C.

S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1943), 104.