It Is Good to Think About Legacy
A few weeks ago at our membership meeting, I shared about the tragic death of my friend Clint Clifton. Clint was a pastor in the DC area and a generous church planting leader. He was 43 years old, with a wonderful wife and five children, and he was doing lots of good work for the kingdom of Christ. He was a starter and a builder and constantly working on something. And then on a Thursday night, January 12, he was involved in a plane crash and now he’s gone. Last week I watched the video of his funeral, where his oldest son, Noah, gave the eulogy. He shared words from his other siblings, and from his mother, and then he shared his own, and he used the word “legacy.”
He didn’t just share stories of how he remembers his dad, but he talked about the life his dad had given his family (and others). Such a life is what a personal legacy is all about. True legacy is not material assets left behind, but it’s the life we are living now, giving to those we love — it’s that life that will be remembered after our sojourn here has ended.
And in those terms, it is worthwhile to think about legacy. We all will have one, so what will yours be?
My hunch is that we don’t think about legacy nearly enough as we should — and maybe there are good reasons for that. Maybe when you hear the word “legacy” it gets entangled with ideas of selfish ambition and vain conceit, and of course, we renounce those things. But I think the reason we don’t think about legacy is because of something else. It’s not the attempt to avoid hubris, but it’s the actual hubris of believing that the here and now is all there is. It’s the hubris of living only for yourself, not your children or your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren (do we ever think about them?).
“Who knows what God might be pleased to do 100 years from now through a means he is orchestrating today?”
After watching Clint’s funeral, here’s what landed new on me: if we live now never thinking about what we’re giving of ourselves to the generations after us, how could we consider our living now to be for God?
If we never think about the generations after us we must think that God cares only about “me, myself, and I” right now. That is the hubris that shrinks our imaginations of God’s providence and work in the world. Who knows what God might be pleased to do 100 years from now through a means he is orchestrating today? Thinking about legacy means we surrender our lives to the God who does that kind of thing.
Legacy, then, is about living for God, not ourselves, in the bigger picture of his providence. It’s good to think about legacy.
