Faithbase

A Greek proverb tells us that a society grows great when a man plants trees knowing the shade of them he will never enjoy. Legacy is probably the single most important thing that we can think about as human beings. The idea of doing something for people that are coming behind us to enjoy is really what makes up society, it's what makes up Christianity. There's a fun little quote that I like that talks about how God has no grandchildren. Christianity is always potentially one generation away from extinction. My thought behind this, my thought in going into this week when we were getting ready to record this video was to really think about what it is that's important to me as an individual. What I realize is it's where I put my time that will ultimately matter the most. The things of my heart and the important things in my mind will be revealed on the things to which I pay attention in the outworkings of my daily life. What I realized, I started doing these personal inventories of my day and I found some things that were great, some things that were positive, like I like to spend time in my word, I like to spend time praying, but I also realized I spend an obscene amount of time playing useless phone app games. Sometimes it's to play with the students that I hang out with, but other times it's just to veg and unplug from reality as a whole. I realized those are all part of my legacy. Those will all be part of my end time if I don't say or change or make any drastic difference. When I think about this in the context of love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself, it really causes me to reforce or rethink and reprioritize the things that are most important to me. Having an eight-week-old daughter now has made me desire to stop spending as much time playing Clash Royale or Clash of Clans or Candy Crush in recent weeks and really focus on what can I give her? How can I improve myself as a husband? How can I improve myself as a human being? How can I improve myself as a dad to make sure that she has the best version of me going forward into her life? One small change that I made was I started going back to the gym. I hadn't been in about two and a half years because of a shoulder injury, and when I was finally cleared, I realized taking small steps like that even for 30 or 45 minutes will do more to cement my longevity of my health than simply playing a Candy Crush game or anything like that. My thought for you this week is what is important to you? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind to your family, to your friends, to the people that love you? When people are at your funeral, talking about you, remembering you, will it be because of this great legacy that you have built that you have been able to pass on to people, or will it be something completely unrelated to that? If you want to talk more about it, feel free to shoot me a DM on Instagram or leave a comment below. I'm at Joshua underscore Carmen on Insta. I would love so much to connect with you there. Thanks a lot, and have a great week.