Living a Legacy: Five Questions

The church I serve recently celebrated its 10 year anniversary. During the celebration, I was given a gift by one of our church’s artists. On one side was a map of the USA. On the back, there was a thank you for helping build a legacy. It really moved me and, more importantly, got me thinking a lot about this truth: to leave a legacy you need to live a legacy. If the first time you think about your legacy is at the end of your life, it is too late.

In its purest form, legacy is something you create during your life to benefit future generations. Often, it’s something you may never see come to fruition. A legacy is like an elderly person who plants a fruit tree - they know they will never taste the fruit it produces.

The writer of Hebrews wrote in chapter 11 a “who’s who” of the Old Testament. The end of the chapter says “All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it.” They and all those who came after them left a spiritual legacy that we are blessed by today. Their legacy was a gift for those who would come after without expecting anything in return.

"The legacy we leave is part of the ongoing foundations of life," says business philosopher and author Jim Rohn. "Those who came before leave us the world we live in. Those who will come after will have only what we leave them. We are stewards of this world, and we have a calling in our lives to leave it better than how we found it, even if it seems like such a small part."

In order to leave a legacy worthy of Christ, we must live a legacy And to live a legacy, we must be intentional. I have come up with five questions that I hope will prompt you to live a legacy. They are not easy…but things of value seldom are.

1.    How will the world be different because I was here?

 

2.    Why is this a legacy worth my life’s work?

 

3.    What am I willing to sacrifice in order to make my legacy a reality?

 

4.    What needs to happen in order for my legacy to become a reality?

 

5.    Who will you entrust with your legacy?

I hope these five questions encourage you to live a more focused life that will help you leave a gift for the generations that follow. You can’t do anything about the world you were given, but you can do something about the world you leave. 

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THE HYPHEN

Last Sunday, I spoke about the universal reality of “two dates and a hyphen,” which are inscribed on every person’s tombstone. Rich, poor, famous, or recluse we all get a birthdate, a death date, and a hyphen in between which represents the sum total of our life. The differentiator in life, and the only real input we have on this universal reality is, “What will our hyphen mean?”

In a broad sense, there are three types of hyphens: Thin, Erect, and Block. 

THE THIN HYPHEN
A thin hyphen represents a life in which the person never really risked anything to make the world a better place, bring light into a dark place, or reach out as the tangible hand of Christ. This is the safe route between your birthdate and death date, a life that played it safe and did not allow for the possibility of failure by investing in the next generation. But as they say, “nothing risked, nothing gained.”

THE ERECT HYPHEN
An erect hyphen is a life that missed the point of life entirely, this is a life in which the person turns the hyphen 90 degrees and make their hyphen, their life about #1; the all-important “I.” A hyphen tuned 90 degrees makes an “I” which is at the center of S.I.N. all sin. It is “I” who wants what I deserve, it is “I” who I think about first, and it is “I” who is, in the end, alone because there was not anyone else to whom this life mattered.

THE BLOCK HYPHEN
Finally, the block hyphen is a full hyphen. A hyphen so full it looks more like a block, a building block that adds to the previous investors and prepares the next generation to go to new heights. This is a life that is known by contributions to help forge a path into the future; a life characterized by giving time, money, and encouragement to those who come after.

History shows us that the mortality rate is about 100%.  The big question is what are you going to do with your time here, your hyphen? Are you going to settle for a thin, malnourished hyphen that was too frightened to step out and invest in the next generation? Or, are you going to turn your hyphen 90 degrees and make life only about yourself? Or, are you going to live a full life, an abundant life… the life God has envisioned for you?