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Key Bible Verse: My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad (Proverbs 23:15).
Bonus Reading: Proverbs 6: 20-23

Let him alone!" His voice was loud and firm. "Get away from him. Let him do it himself!" My eyes soon focused on a young boy who was big for his age. He'd accidentally overturned a wheelbarrow full of dirt. The sheer weight of it falling to his left had thrown him to the ground. Several men helping at the construction site scurried over to help upright the wheelbarrow and refill it, when from across the yard his dad hollered those words.

The young boy dusted himself off, set the wheelbarrow upright, and began shoveling the dirt back into it, glancing back toward his dad several times for some kind of approval. His dad quietly said to me, "He needs to learn responsibility. He needs to accomplish this job alone. He wanted to work, so let him work."

I understood the heart of that father. The boy finished his job and came back to his dad with a big grin; Dad greeted him by tousling his hair and saying, "Good job, son, you stayed with it." A seemingly minuscule interaction, but it had lifelong consequences. I witnessed a father mortaring another brick into the wall of his son's character.

—J. Otis Ledbetter in Your Heritage

What am I doing to develop character in those with whom I have influence?

A father who teaches his children responsibility provides them with a fortune.

—Anonymous

Adapted from: Your Heritage (Cook, 1996, 1999)

For your convenience, Your Heritage is available in the ChristianityToday.com bookstore.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Lord, I want to manage well what I've learned from others by purposefully passing it on.

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