The impact of legacy

Why did Steve Jobs passing have such a huge impact? Legacy!

Steve Jobs cultivated a legacy over his years. He had an impact on every day life for a lot of people by revolutionizing gadgets. While I love the devices he created; I am sad for him, that is his legacy as a man.

While his legacy is well known it it also inpersonel. People are not praising a legacy that is truly meaningful. I'm not knocking him and I know this is a somewhat subjective issue but the point is he is not known for how much he loved. He is not known for being a man who loved his wife and children in an impacting way. (Not to say he didn't)

What is a legacy?


Definition: A legacy is anything handed down from the past.

With that definition in mind, I want to be careful of what I'm passing down to my children. As you know, things like a reputation, wealth, and stuff in general, are temporal and therefor finite. What one man builds up, his another tares down.

I don't want to pass down stuff to my children and their children's children. No, I want to pass down a legacy of truth, love, peace, sense of family, hope, and faith by God's grace. That kind of legacy is lasting and meaningful because it intimately touches people and changes them, and that's enough! When I'm dead and stand before God, I don't think he will ask me how big of an empire did I leave, but how much did I love him and do as he asked?

The great thing about life is we get to determine what kind of impact we want to make. I want to make an eternal impact. I want my children to remember me with fondness. I want them to feel that they inherited a a positive mind set that will help them. I want their little hearts to be full of the fruits of the spirit. I want them to know they had something special and lasting within our family.

There are so many times when we see success stories of someone who did the impossible and created a empire that makes billions. Often times, when we look behind the so called achievement, we see that  it had a severe cost. A decimated and broken family. Children who wanted for nothing while growing up, now have no want for anything. They remember a distant father, a wounded mother, and how they feel alone.

If you love your family and want to leave a lasting legacy, don't focus on stuff. Your son would rather play ball with you than have an Xbox. Your wife would rather spend time with you adoring her than having the nicest minivan or a diamond ring. When your family talks about you at your funeral; what would you like them to talk about? The stuff you provided that rots or of the lasting impact you made on their lives?

What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?