This past week I had to go to a funeral. A funeral for a 1 ½ year old. I was amazed at the amount of people who were there. Who could this little girl have touched in just 1 ½ years? Many. Obviously. As I looked around at the different people I began to think about what a wise man once told our congregation years ago.
If you want to touch lives and leave a legacy, live your life backwards. Write your own obituary. Write what you would want it to say. Then live it out. What a powerful thought. A lot of us just move through life at a rapid speed. Barely able to keep up with the things we have to do, not even thinking about the things that will keep us in people’s thoughts way after we have gone home to be with the Lord. What impact will your life have made?
Will people remember you for the few days that you are memorialized or will you have an impact on people’s lives that will memorialize you forever? What have you done for the kingdom of God today? It doesn’t have to be earth shattering. A simple call to a friend to see how they are doing. Holding a door for someone. A smile for someone who looks like they are on their down and out. A simple, “What can I do?”
I cannot tell you the number of people who on a daily basis tell me how much I mean to them. Honestly, I’m not sure what I have done for them! I serve the Lord with all my heart, and by doing that humanity gets to benefit from that. I see a need, I meet it. Why? Because I’m a great person? I could only hope. But I do it because that’s what Jesus would do. We may be the only Jesus someone “sees”.
What is our life worth? More so the question will be for all of us, what was your life worth? And the legacy you will have left will tell it all. Go. Write your obituary today and live life backwards.