What Legacy Will We Leave?
Since my dad passed away over nine months ago, I have been thinking more deeply on the aspect of leaving a legacy. My entire family is very aware that the biggest legacy our husband, father, and grandfather left to us is one of faithfulness to God. It affected everything my dad did. He was very mindful of passing along to us faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, and a rock solid belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. His words, deeds, and actions were all a testament to it.
Scripture speaks of laying up treasure in heaven; so there is an aspect of our life as we live it every day that has bearing on our future once life on earth is over. This can be considered as “sending something on ahead.” Scripture is full of wisdom on what God actually considers to be a treasure. His accounting is often very different than our earthly treasures. And once we leave this earthly life we will also be leaving something behind…chiefly our legacy, or what we are known for, whether good or bad. Thoughtfulness about such things can help direct on how we live out each day. These things have an impact on earthly dwellings, as well as our heavenly dwelling.
A couple of months ago I was watching the home improvement show “Fixer Upper to Fabulous.” They were renovating a home purchased by a granddaughter that was built by her grandparents. The house was full of wonderful memories of her grandparents, parents, and extended family. She was wanting to update and preserve the legacy left to her. In many ways her grandparents had left her a gift for the future and precious memories of the past. Of course, the opposite could have been true if the grandparents had not left these wonderful memories behind in their family. The house could have been a negative reminder and the legacy left behind could have been one that wasn’t valued that the family wanted to discard as fast as possible. It was a pleasure to hear of how these grandparents remained a treasured memory for their family members.
We all get a choice of how to “build our houses.” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us the wise man built his house upon the Rock and when the “rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, it did not fall because it had been founded on the Rock.” (For the present time and into eternity). The foolish man built his house upon the sand and when the storms of life came against it, “It fell, and great was the fall of it.”
As I consider the whole idea of having a legacy, wisdom would say that now is the time to give thought to such things. We are building on it day by day. I am so very thankful my Dad chose to build on the Rock and was mindful of what he passed to his family. What a wonderful legacy to continue to build upon!
