Legacy

“Each generation stands on the shoulders of its predecessors like acrobats in a vast human pyramid. Thus, to tell the story of those who heirs we are is to write a long preface to our own life stories.”

These words and others strike me in a way that is both profound and personal. I have in recent times longed for and sought to understand what legacy I have inherited. I believe that we have all been created and exist in and under circumstances that are oft times beyond our scope of understanding. I believe that the way I think, who I am, conclusions I draw, failures I experience, and so on have all had their foundations laid by the progression and cycle of history.

I have feared as a husband, and Lord willing someday as a father what I might be/become. I have feared in my career that success might evade me and that I would be a disappointment to my family and to myself. I have often thought about what successive generations will report about this man.

Tonight, as I prepare for my studies on church history, I realize that I have a great legacy. I am a Christian; and the testimony of those who have gone before me, however glorious or perplexing, is all a part of my legacy.

I was perplexed by Bunyan’s remarks concerning the character “Christian” at the beginning of Pilgrims Progress:

“Now, he had not run far from his own door, but his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying, Life! Life! Eternal life! So he looked not behind him but fled towards the middle plain.”

I understand now. The vanity of our earthly legacy is fleeting, but we are not doomed to perpetuate the absurdity of those that have gone before us. I understand my past well enough, but as Justo L. Gonzalez tells the Christian seeking to understand their new identity inherited by becoming an heir with Christ:

“Without understanding that past, we are unable to understand ourselves, for in a sense the past still lives in us and influences who we are and how we understand the Christian message.”