Robert Fiske Griggs (1881-1962) is best known for discovering The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, site of the biggest volcanic eruption in over 100 years. He is also known for the 1922 book he authored of the same name (click here for a free pdf version). What he is less well-known for is being a godly husband and father to four children. His oldest son, David Tressel Griggs, became a fairly well-known scientist himself. In a biography about him, published by the National Academy of Sciences (surprised?), it says that David’s “parental home was a citadel of Christian values, based on love, fidelity, and truth.”
Wow! Biographies like that should remind us of a few things, one of those being that there is no battle between science and religion. That is make-believe nonsense propagated by anti-Christian bigots. Christians are commanded to “do science” from the get-go in Genesis 1:26-28.
More importantly though, this should remind us all to hope and pray that we will leave a legacy like the Griggs family has. We should ask ourselves “What will people write about my family when I am gone? Will they say it was a citadel of Christian values, too?”
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2
Studying His Word and His Works 