A Life or a Legacy?

A Legacy in the Making

After my daughter explained our food plans for Christmas to a friend (yes, we make food plans), she replied, “Wow! You sure are into food.”

I chuckled inside because anyone who knows our family understands that food is a big deal.

Always…

It doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas dinner or snacks for a road trip; we want yummy things to eat that are of excellent quality and appropriate for the season. (I mean, nobody wants to eat beef stew on a hot summer’s day, right?)

As I pondered her friend’s reflection on our family, I realized good food is part of my family legacy.

As a kid, I loved hearing about my grandfather’s legendary dinner parties which could last up to to five hours. I’m not sure if they were that long because they had so many courses—“And now for the fish course, there is fillet of sole with beurre blanc—or if it was due to all the wine they also consumed, but it sounded like heaven to me.

Oh, how I wish I could have been there!

Even though I never got to eat with my grandpa, his love of food and hospitality has been passed down, and I’m not mad about it.

This is a family trait that I adore.

I carried on my grandpa’s legacy by talking to my kids about food and often sharing recipes with them. Pictures of meals are sent on the family text chat and meals are treasured times of joy and relaxation. Even my 20-month-old grandson has begun to say, “Mmmmmmm…” when food is brought to the table.

Oh, my heart!

“That’s my boy!”

This is what happens when you create a legacy.

As we think about our goals and intentions for 2025, it’s important to remember that the way we live can and will influence others in and beyond our lifetime—even in ways that we wish it didn’t. Although it’s a good practice to set yearly goals, it’s important to ponder how those goals will impact the legacy you want to leave others.

This is even more true if you are a leader, parent, spouse, teacher, or pastor.

Your people are watching and, in many cases, following your lead. The question is, are you leaving the legacy that you intend to?

A Legacy Adjustment

As you consider and set goals or intentions for this new year, I encourage you to think about the people in your life.

I’m happy I’ve inspired a love of great food in my family, but what else am I passing on to those around me? If I want to impart a legacy of grace, generosity, and health, for example, it requires that I live my life in a manner that reflects those values and, when possible, invite others around me to do the same.

Sadly, that has not always been the case.

Although I love the idea of being a generous person in every area of my life—time, money, encouragement, and promotion of others—in the past, I allowed the inherited legacy of penny-pinching to trump my desire to be generous.

For a long time this wasn’t something I thought about. However, once I noticed this conflict between how I was living and how I wanted to live, I couldn’t unsee it. In this particular example, the root of my struggle was a lack of trust in God to provide for me. Somewhere in my life, I picked up the lie that “God only helps those who help themselves.” (By the way, this is not in the Bible.) When I believed that it was always up to me to make ends meet, I was only able to give away what was directly within my control.

Once I understood and believed that I could trust God as my provider, I became free to be more generous to those around me.

This was a process that required me to forgive anyone who taught me that I couldn’t trust God and to ask Him to show me what was true. Of course, I then had to test my beliefs by giving more.

Although it was not always easy to walk out a new way of thinking and behaving, I was motivated to persevere because I’d much rather pass on a legacy of generosity than one of penny-pinching.