A legacy is an inheritance handed down from one generation to the next, something by which our descendants remember us. The most important legacies are not monetary but emotional, spiritual, and moral, and they center on the character of the person leaving them.

Legacies from the past affect a family’s future. We all know families with long-standing reputations of good character – kindness, honesty, decency, and upstanding behavior. We all know fortunate people who inherited such a positive legacy from their parents and grandparents, and we can see the great advantages to them in terms of self-esteem and emotional well-being.

On the other hand, we are aware of the handicaps borne by those who are plagued by a parent’s negative legacy of character and behavior. While we like to believe that an individual can overcome any disadvantage, we all know that what has happened in our families can seem either a blessing or a curse on our lives.

Take time to pray to:

…Acknowledge the legacy your family left for you;

…Share your deepest feelings about that legacy;

…Ask God to bless your efforts to create a meaningful legacy for your children.

Reflect and ask:

What kind of legacy did your parents and grandparents leave for you? Explain.

How has that legacy affected your life?

What has been your legacy to your children so far? What would you like to change?

Consider these passages for further study on leaving a legacy:

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

These are the commands, decrees, and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, ² so that you, your children, and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy a long life. ³ Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Proverbs 22:6 Start children off on the way they should go,
    and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

Ephesians 6:1-2 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ² “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—

The devotional is from Esther 10:1-3 King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. ² And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? ³ Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.

These questions help me reflect and prepare for what I would like to create, and what you can do now to leave a difference in someone’s heart. Great thoughts of Gary Chapman.