Legacy

Have you ever wondered what people will say about you after you die? What will your legacy be? If you could stand at your own funeral and recount your life, what would you say? Would you talk about the job you had? Or the car you drove? Perhaps the vacations you took or the clothes you wore? What will people remember about you when you're gone?

I'd like to think that when I'm dead and buried that people will remember me as being generous, kind, concerned, loving, helpfull. The problem is, if that's what I want people to remember than I better make sure that I'm living that way. It's one thing to say something and a completely different thing to actually do it.

We are building our legacies every single day with every word we speak and every action we take, or don't take. What are you doing today to insure that, long after you are gone, your impact is still being felt?

Why we lie

You ever wonder why people lie? I consider myself a pretty honest guy but even I catch myself slipping untruths in here or there. It's unintentional, but it still happens from time to time.

I think people lie out of fear. Fear of the truth. Maybe it's driven by guilt of something you did or said that you know you shouldn't have. Maybe it's because we're afraid of the reaction people will have if the truth comes out. If they find out who we really are. Even if it's not a bad thing. You have to admit we spend an awful lot of energy trying to give off a certain impression to people. Sometimes we feel like we have to be something that we really aren't to make others accept us.

Perhaps it would be good if we all, myself included, took a step away from ourselves and took a good look at who we really are. Not the person we think people want us to be. What incredible freedom we would have if we could simply be ourselves.

That's what I love so much about Jesus. He took people just as they were. He didn't point fingers or hurl accusations. He took them as they came and loved them with more than just words.

Imperfections

I have all kinds of imperfections in my body. My teeth are crooked. I'm nearsighted. One of my eyebrows grows in the opposite direction at one end. My fingers are long and curl up just a bit at the tips. My nose is slightly crooked and my ears have little indentations on them from childbirth. I have a slight bald spot above one of my sideburns. I get really dry skin that migrates on my body. Right now it's taken up residence on my left hand. I'm just about six feet tall but only weigh 140 pounds. I have a slight curvature of my spine, too.

I'm sure if I thought for a little longer I could come up with some others. The truth is though, I'm actually a pretty normal looking guy to most people. I guess you see what you want to see. What do you see when you look at someone else? What do you see when you look at yourself?

What does God see when he looks at us in all our imperfect perfection? It's either one of two things. Us or Jesus. It's our choice. I choose Jesus.