The Legacy You Are Building
by Zion Montgomery
When I think of legacy, I think of my mother. Make no mistake: no one will remember your legacy like your family. It’s easy to think about legacy as something grand and outside of us, but the truth is, our family is the one place we are completely irreplaceable. So, let’s consider legacy from this perspective. My mother’s legacy is her love. I did not grow up loving Jesus; He was not part of our lives or conversations. We did not go to church or celebrate Him during Christmas. However, when Jesus made his perfectly-timed introduction to me, His love felt huge, and yet so familiar. Without question, I accepted Him into my heart, because my mother had lavished pure, genuine love over me my entire life.
I am a young parent, with three children ages three and under. Naturally, I wouldn’t quite characterize my days as “intentional.” I fear that my hurriedness, anxiety, and snappiness will be what carries beyond me into their lives. I fear that I am not doing enough. Maybe you can relate to thinking about the legacy you want to leave and feeling the chasm between that legacy and where you are today.
In Exodus 20, the Lord told us that the iniquity of fathers will “visit to the third and fourth generations,” but that he “lavishes unfailing love for a thousand generations.” How good is our God? The negatives - the trauma, shame, mistakes, sin, rushing -- these things might visit for 3-4 generations, but the positives -- the joy, love, peace, understanding, wisdom, the things of God -- these things will be poured out in excess for more time than we can truly comprehend.
My friend, can I encourage you that the power of our legacy is that it is not really ours. Rather, we get to partner in what the Lord has wanted to do in the earth for eternity. The Holy Spirit has gifted us a role to play in a story where we aren’t the main character, and thank God for it. If we can intentionally do our part to connect with the Lord moment by moment and live from the place of being loved by Him, then we will perpetuate a powerful legacy to our families and beyond. The power of our legacy isn’t that we acted a certain way or did a certain thing. The power of our legacy is that it’s Him.
Hebrews 10:24 - “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds…” In other words, spur one another on to Him.