Epitaph

One of the saddest epitaph I've ever read is found in 2 Chronicles 21:20, "Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He passed away, to no one’s regret."  He lived, he died, who cares?

How sad is that to have been anointed as king, to have been in a position to have changed the landscape of society, leaving a footprint that would have been talked about for generations to come but instead to have came and gone and nobody even cares.  Wow!

I remember the ending of the movie, "Saving Private Ryan," where the private, now an old man, goes to the grave site of the captain who saved him and asking his wife this haunting question: "Have I been a good man?"  He wanted to know if his life made a difference, if it was worth the sacrifice the captain and others paid for it.

Do you wonder?  Do you think about the next generation and whether your life will have made a difference for them?  Have you thought about what you want to be said of you, to be your epitaph?  What will you leave your children and grandchildren?

I don't mean the monetary delineations of your codicil or will for money is of little lasting value and might even be to their ruin: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (1 Tim 6:10).

What, of lasting value, will you leave the next generation and perhaps the one after that?  What will your legacy be?  Will your children and grandchildren have memories of your character, your ethics, your faith and your love to give them a foundation upon which to stand and the moral  strength to allow them to rise above?

Listen to the prayer of King David, "Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come" (Ps 71:18).  This is the duty of each generation - to leave a legacy of faith to the next.  Is your life a testament of faith or faithlessness?  It will be one or the other:

    "You are writing a gospel, a chapter each day,
    By the things that you do and the things that you say.
    People will read your gospel whether faithless or true,
    Say, what is the Gospel, according to you?

What will be your legacy?  What will be the epitaph that is stamped into the soul of your heirs and others for whom you have been a model?  Everyone is being watched by someone(s), making an impression of one kind or another.  What is yours?  Will your passing be marked by tears of those who will miss your presence among them or will it be to no one's regret?  Jus' Ask'n.