Don’t Waste Your Life Leaving Your Legacy.

There is no remembrance of those who came before; and of those who will come after there will be no remembrance by those who follow them. – Ecclesiastes 1.11 (CSB)

Isn’t it ironic to read those words from a man who has been talked about all over the world even before he wrote them? And yet in raw honesty, while journaling his thoughts, Solomon felt them and wrote them down. Did he write them thinking they would be part of the canon of Scripture someday? I doubt it. He wrote them as he looked at life and tried to figure things out. Did the Holy Spirit inspire his words? Absolutely. I believe this with all of my heart. And what a treasure Ecclesiastes is for all of us, as we look at life, trying to figure things out.

Yet, Solomon’s words seem hopeless, don’t they? Of course they do. The beginning of his journal says, “Absolute futility, everything is futile” (Ecclesiastes 1.1, CSB). That sets the tone. But what if we looked at what he wrote with a sense of direction and clarity? Think about it: our world has innumerable priorities and beliefs being thrown out at us constantly. Things that we need or things that we should want to need or need to want. But isn’t it all a lot of noise until there is clarity. And aren’t we Christians just as guilty with the amount of information that we produce? Even my writing makes me culpable of more information being thrown out. And while information is not bad, bad information is.

So what if we look at what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 1.11 as something that frees us from the pressure of something we often consider honorable? What is it? Legacy

“Leave your mark.”

“What will your legacy be?”

Don’t we all want to know that our being here on this “third rock from the sun” means something? Don’t we read the life stories of exceptional people and desire to have that same fame… I mean impact? And I think therein lies the issue.

Can you hear the pressure of “making it” in those two statements about leaving your mark or leaving your legacy? I used to live with this desire. And while I genuinely wanted to leave my mark because I wanted to be used by the Lord to do great things, it was still my mark that I wanted to leave. Me. Mine. There was a big part of me that needed to be needed. But now, my freedom from having to leave a legacy has brought about a freedom I genuinely love. Like I said, I used to live with a burden to leave my mark on the world for Jesus. But instead of looking at those around me who were leaving their marks through ordinary and faithful living to the Lord, part of me was looking at “Christian celebrities” to see how I could emulate them so that my fame could be similar to theirs. 

Today, I can say with all sincerity and gratefulness to the Lord for his faithfulness to me in his process of sanctification, I long to be faithful over famous. To live faithfully for the Lord is worship of the Lord. And isn’t that what we are actually called to do? “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship” (Romans 12.1, CSB). I’m not called to leave my mark. I’m not called to leave a legacy. Rather, I’m called to faithfully worship Jesus by presenting my whole person daily to his will, living in obedience to him because of my love for him. Leaving my mark or leaving a legacy makes me the focus of everything that I do. But living faithfully in worship to Jesus frees me to give him all the glory and honor he is due. And the beauty of leaving a legacy in all of it is that Jesus will leave his legacy through me. I don’t want anyone to settle for focusing on my legacy when they can be lavished by Christ’s. So there’s no pressure for me to perform in order to be known or recognized. Instead, I’m invited to faithfully live day by day with the Lord for his fame and renown. 

So let’s not waste time worrying about how much of a legacy we are leaving. Instead, let’s be faithful to do what we are called to each day as we humbly walk with Jesus. Let’s worship him so that he leaves his legacy through us. And what a great legacy that is.