Legacy

Legacy is a powerful word. Several dictionaries define legacy as a gift of value left through a will or something passed on from one generation to another. If you are a person of great financial means then it is easy to see how your legacy might be the financial divisions you make of your worldly assets when you are dead and the will is executed. Most of the world’s population is not that wealthy and will not leave a monetary legacy. Yet their legacy has the potential to be far more impactful than just plain money. Legacies can make Ripples.

As we go from one generation to the next we often find four or five generations of families alive at the same time. To be sure, the newest members have not yet figured out what the oldest family members have left them but in a few short years it becomes apparent. Names are often a traditional legacy. Community standing and respect for accomplishments as well as skills and talents are sometimes seen in that light too. Some people live lives of quiet desperation in the shadow of the legacy some earlier family members excelling powers. Most people however develop their own place of recognition and are remembered for that. Then they Ripple onto others.

Do you know me? I write, I preach, I teach, my sole desire is to impact others for good for the cause of Jesus Christ. Yet I fumble at most I attempt. Do you know my father? He was electrical engineer who worked on many of the space capsules and early space stations. He was also the designer of the first successful guidance system of the cruise missile. Yet he never graduated from high school. My uncle was a movie star, my cousins and family relatives were lawyers and artists and engineers and actors and writers and professors and so very many more. Each of these left something to those who followed them. Some made wise choices and followed the Lord into Glory. Some made poorer choices and followed another spirit through lives of lesser reputation.  All left a legacy, a memory, a testimony of who and what they were in this life. They made Ripples. I want to Ripple.

Two of the people I am proudest of are my sister Kathy and my father’s wife, Dianne. Each of them climbed out of the pit life tossed them into; struggled to be who they were intended to be and have found the answer. They know Jesus Christ in a real and personal way. They have triumphed in Him and have shared His love with many others. Their legacy is who they are in Him and what He has accomplished through them. I see Christ in them, the hope of glory. They make really big Ripples.

Three of the people I am proudest of are those who are still building their legacies. I see in them the glory of my King and I love them with the love of the Lord. They are my children. By God’s grace and not my hand nor my skill, they are mighty in His sight. Each ministers as servants in His name according to His design for them.  Each has desires and dreams and plans. Each has skills and talents and spiritual gifts designed by Jesus for His purpose. Each causes me to wonder if I will only be remembered because I was their father; covered by their ripples.

My desire is that my legacy would be that I obeyed the Lord. I am a servant of the Most High God. I am a child of my heavenly father, saved from His wrath by the gift of His Son and filled with His Spirit for His Glory. But my legacy will be for others to determine. What there is of value from my life when it is passed, they will determine.  A legacy is a powerful thing. It has impact long after we are gone. It can cause those who come after to breathe freer, walk more securely and choose more rightly. And that’s what I desire, a Legacy for SMHG John that says he lived as the Servant of the Most High God. ( and that he RIPPLED!!)