Principle of Legacy

I know a guy named Garrett who has completely changed my impression of him in a matter of a couple of years.  When I first met him, he came across as a slacker – lazy, unmotivated, and a pretty bad student.  But the last time I saw him he had rewritten his story – at least the one that played out in my head.  Truth is, Garrett is sharp, actually quite brilliant as a communicator, and a potential world changer.

What made the difference?

Time.  Perspective.  A little experience.  In Garrett’s case, he never stopped anything or changed anything.  I just had more time to get to know what he was capable of.  The one who needed changing was me.

Sarah and Ben were a different case.  [click to continue…]

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How do you want to be remembered?

By what you did?  What you said?  Who and how you loved?  What you accomplished or overcame?

That may or may not happen.

I was chatting with someone yesterday about the idea of legacy – one of those Five Laws of LifeVesting.  He asked me to clarify what I meant and how people leave legacies after their time on earth is done.  I said that legacy has two parts – the intentional and the unplanned.

There are some things I want to be remembered for, and I take action to make those memories while I still have a chance by investing my life in things that will live on after me.  This is why people give money, write things, do art or music, or make memories with people, just to name a few.

But your legacy has a life of its own, and you’re making memories all the time, whether you realize it or not.  Some of those are pretty routine.  Some are painful.  Some are glorious, and you don’t even know it.

Two days ago I got an email from Gotta-Love-Google-Land.  It came from somebody I knew in my very first church staff position, 33 years ago.  The message, framed with “thank you,” contained some profound memories.  What was interesting, though, was what all those memories had in common. [click to continue…]

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“I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Given my history with that kind of meeting request, I’m embarrassed to admit that my first instinct was to brace for bad news.  And given the fact that it came from my father-in-law, of all people, made me think I must really be in trouble.

What in the world could he possibly want?  What was so serious?  I started collecting a mental inventory of possibilities.  And in my head, started apologizing before I ever knew what the “something” was.

Turns out, apologies weren’t on the agenda.

Harlan Willis is one of the most tenderhearted, godliest men I know.  He has followed Christ since the age of 10, and committed himself to the Lord to become a medical missionary at the age of 15.  Both were profound experiences, and as a result, he invested a huge portion of his life to serving Christ and advancing the gospel in Thailand – and now for years in West Texas, where, at age 82 he is still practicing medicine and sharing Jesus.

But for years something has nagged him.  Bothered him since his teenage years.  That something has been the impression that he should be baptized.  Again.

And that’s what he wanted to talk to me about.  And he wanted me to do it.

Didn’t make sense.

For years he wondered if it was just the devil.

That didn’t make sense, either

But he couldn’t do it in Thailand!  What would the people there think?  What would the other missionaries think?

He couldn’t do it back in Texas.  What would the people in the church think?

This wasn’t a case of getting his baptism out of order, as often happens when people are baptized who really don’t understand what it is they are responding to in the gospel.

He knew.  Age 10.  And baptism came later.

But yet… here was this feeling.  This call. [click to continue…]

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(From the forthcoming book, Coach Lightning)

(Note:  Anybody can be an influence to people sitting right in front of them.  But it takes a special kind of character to continue to shape lives you first touched 50 years ago.  The following is an excerpt about the way Morris Brown did that, and how his influence lives on to this day.  You can see other excerpts here and here.)

Benjamin Disraeli, the British statesman, once said, “The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.”  That’s what you discover when you talk to the people whose lives were touched by Morris Brown.  You hear the language of wealthy people.  And they’ll tell you that Coach Brown was instrumental in revealing their riches to them.

One of the greatest contributions any leader, teacher, or friend can make in terms of influence is to “raise the bar” in the pursuit of excellence.  Morris did that time and time again.  Don Hunt calls him a “beacon in my heart and soul” to this day.  From the days of Little League baseball until today, Don says, Coach Brown’s life and actions remind him to strive to be the best person that he can be.

It’s interesting to note that in all the conversations or interviews about Coach Brown’s influence, nobody went to a chalkboard and started drawing the X’s and O’s of a football locker room.  Morris influenced players and students by first influencing them as people.  As he helped raise up a generation of excellent people, the on-field or on-court play took care of itself. [click to continue…]

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This may be a leap, but let’s assume for a minute that you know what it is you want, and you’re pursuing it.  I don’t mean what you’re conquering in your search for lunch.  I’m talking destiny, journey-of-desire stuff.  Maybe it’s to influence or gain the approval of someone.  Maybe it’s wisdom to make good choices or the ability to do something that’s hard or impossible for you right now.

Regardless, have you ever noticed that sometimes getting there feels like an eight-lane highway?  And other times, the minute you start moving in that direction it feels like you just turned onto a muddy jungle trail?

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the journey launches like gangbusters, but then stalls or stagnates?

Chances are, you came to a fork in the road and made a wrong turn.

Robert Frost was right in his famous poem about the two roads and choosing the one less traveled by.  What he failed to mention was that life or any worthwhile pursuit is a series of forks in the road, not just one.  One road leads to a path that makes it easier to pursue your dreams; the other leads to mediocrity, failure, and defeat.

Appearances are Deceptive

Paths that lead to mediocrity and failure are well-worn and popular.  They require the least mental effort or “soul work.”  But what starts off as the path of least resistance quickly turns to the path of resistance-beats-my-brains-out.

Other paths may appear to require a lot of work or may leave you feeling isolated and alone.  But somewhere in that spiritual, emotional, and mental work you activate forces that begin to carry your load, increase your speed, and move you in the direction of your truest desires.

The other tricky part about these forks in the road: [click to continue…]

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Who is the shyest person you know?  Picture them in your mind.  Got it?  Good.  Now…

Imagine that person at the end of his or her life.  And sometime just before they kiss this world good-bye they’re the guest of honor at the most amazing invitation-only celebration.  This party is reserved for those whose life has somehow been touched – influenced – by Shy Guy himself.

Care to hazard a guess how many names are on the invitation list?

Ten thousand.  A myriad.  Ten thousand people whose lives are influenced by the most reserved, quiet girl or guy you know.

That’s nothing compared to the lives that have been impacted by bubbly ol’ you.  And this isn’t about somebody else’s influence.  It’s about yours.

This is about your myriad.  Or in your case, perhaps your million.  It’s about all the people who make decisions because of you.  Who make changes because of you.  Who establish relationships, try something new, dig deeper, grow wiser, or go farther because of your influence.  Or, it’s about the people who grow hard-hearted, discouraged, dispirited, or fearful because you showed them how.

Somebody’s watching.  Somebody’s doing.  Somebody’s believing.  Somebody’s changing.  And they all have you to thank. [click to continue…]

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(With humble apologies to the Mary Stevenson Estate)

One night I dreamed that I was dipping my feet in the dog’s water bowl

And walking the lonely journey across my patio,

Leaving wet footprints along the way.

Soon I noticed tiny little footprints appearing behind mine. [click to continue…]

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(The Further Adventures of Eugene Davis, Sophomore Christian)

“I’ve found it!”

I looked up from my desk to see the beaming face of Eugene Davis, my favorite sophomore Christian.  Eugene had been following Christ less than two years, but had shown considerable growth during that period.

Trouble was, he knew it.

His zeal for new knowledge was refreshing.  But his impatience with others and the seriousness with which he took himself could be annoying.

“Must be another evangelism gimmick,” I thought to myself as I asked politely, “Found what?”

“I’ve found THE sign of a good parent.”

Now I had learned not to be surprised at anything that came from Eugene’s mind, and since I had recently started teaching a class in effective parenting, he succeeded in getting my attention.  I thought I had heard them all – unconditional love, “I messages,” eye contact, firm discipline, etc. – but no conference or seminary class had ever prepared me for this. [click to continue…]

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I believe that it is not dying that people are afraid of.  Something else, something more unsettling and more tragic than dying frightens us.  We are afraid of never having lived, of coming to the end of our days with the sense that we were never really alive, that we never figured out what life was for. – Harold Kushner

The great Presbyterian pastor Donald Grey Barnhouse was once riding in a funeral procession in Philadelphia when he noticed a large cargo truck running in front of the procession.  From the way the sun was positioned, he noticed that the truck was casting a large shadow on the sidewalk.  That shadow crossed light poles, road signs, and even people, and didn’t harm anything.  No one would want to be in front of the truck, mind you, but the shadow was harmless.

Every one of us was born on the other side of something called “labor.”  We enter the world completely helpless and fragile, totally dependent on the protection, care and kindness of others.  We borrow the oxygen and assorted things for a span of time the Bible calls a “vapor.”   Despite our claims to ownership, we take no possessions with us.  And we end our sojourn on earth passing through something called a “shadow.”

Birth is a labor soon forgotten…

Life is a vapor quickly fading…

Possessions are an illusion suddenly passing…

Death is shadow silently creeping…

Is there any wonder we struggle sometimes to know what’s real?  And what’s valuable? [click to continue…]

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The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. . . The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope. (C. H. Spurgeon)

In East Tennessee a mother suffers a broken leg and a devastated heart as a tornado claims the life of her baby.

In West Alabama a couple hears a noise and opens the front door of their home.  Seconds later, there is no more home, and no more couple.

123 tornadoes, so I hear,  in one day.  The death toll at this point:  319.

Meanwhile, on the same day, in East Texas a spiritual champion and one of the most respected leaders of his generation collides with destiny in the form of a tractor trailer.

And as the world reels and the grieving begins in earnest, a rude reminder comes collecting – the winds blow and the rains fall on the just and the unjust, and none of us has any guarantee of tomorrow.

Does that anger you?  Me, too.

Does it seem unfair?  I get that.  Why do tornados never seem to level prisons?

We can huff on our high horse all we want, but guess what?  Neither you nor I will change the fact that life is unfairly short and at times unbearably hard.

Is that God’s fault?  I’m sure we’ll get our dose of that from the usual sources.  How come nobody ever “blames” God when money’s in the bank, gas is cheap and the ocean is calm? [click to continue…]

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