Mark Making

We leave lots of marks in our lives.  I carved a heart and my wife and my initials into a tree.  Our daughter wrote, "I love you," on our bathroom mirror.  I used chalk to write, "I love you," on my wife's dashboard in her car.  A not-so-good-friend left a piece of pencil led in my knee my freshman year of HS.  I have a scar on my hand from sneaking over the chain link fence into the little kids play area at church with my friend Jason - we then had to get out quick when we heard someone coming, hence the scar.

I have left marks on my children's hearts, their backsides and their minds - as they have also done to me.  We all leave marks.  Omri, an ancient king of Israel, left his mark of evil.  He reigned for 12 years.  And 1 Kings 16 says, "The rest of Omri's life, the mark he made on his times, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel."  This was not a good thing for the people of Israel since Omri followed in the footsteps of Jereboam's evil and was the father of Ahab who, "did even more open evil before God than anyone yet-a new champion in evil!" (MSG 1 Kings 16:30).


What a mark!  The father of the worst and most evil king ever was who he was because of the mark his father left.  Every one of us leaves a mark.  Every action.  Every word.  Every inconsiderate comment.  Every smile.  Every flare of road-rage.  Every gesture of kindness.  My oldest son just told me yesterday that sometimes he offers to help older folks get their groceries into their cars at the store.  "They look at me like I'm gonna rob them..." was his next statement, but at least he's offering!  And what a mark left on an older generation that often thinks those young folks don't care about anyone but themselves.


What kind of mark are you leaving on your family?  On your friends or acquaintances?  I got to help a lady stuck in the road who was out of gas, out of hope and out of work for the last 2 months.  Mark left.  What kinds of marks will you purpose to leave?  Marks that encourage and build up or tear down and create even higher degrees of evil than you thought of?  Everyone leaves a mark... what does yours look like?