One Month, A Legacy, and The Power of Choice
On Sunday, I wrapped a series of lessons that I’ve been teaching on leaving on a godly legacy. One of the easiest biblical passages to see the idea of legacy is in Psalm 78:1-6. Here the psalmist writes:
I will teach you hidden lessons from our past– stories we have heard and know,
Stories our ancestors handed down to us.
We will not hide these truths from our children
But will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD.
We will tell of his power and the mighty miracles he did.
The words ancestors, children, and next generation all point to a legacy of faith. We have to ask the question, “How do we pass on faith?” We might break it down in this way:
- Our ideas and the ways we go about thinking fuel our feelings and our choices.
- Almost without thinking, routine choices become everyday habits.
- Habits form and inform traditions.
- Faith takes form in this process and is refined by the struggles losses and gains of living in the world.
If we want to change, if we want to become better parents or deeper Christians, how will that happen. Truly God will have to set the transformation in motion. We will have to respond a sense of emptiness and longing for more, and when we finally surrender to God and His voice, we can start to be free.
But this will take a decision on our part. I asked the class yesterday, “if you knew you had one month to live, how would you live differently?” The perspective of knowing that life is going to end has a way of focusing our minds. Many of the things that are trivial finally become trivial. And we focus on relationships and memories because they are what really matter. Most of all our relationship with God. Do you think you would pray more if you only had one month to live? If so, why not make the decision to change now? Why not discover God in everyday life now and pass on a godly legacy.
Soren Kierkegaard wisely observed, “A choice that is not used is worse than nothing; it is a snare in which a person has trapped himself as a slave who did not become free.”
Jesus calls us by saying, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.”
What is keeping you from living by different choices? Pray about that and live in God’s Power toward a new legacy.
