It’s over! Well nearly! Slowly the excitement of the
Olympic Games is dying away, and the question that all of the great and the
good seem to be asking is ‘Will the Games leave a legacy? Will all the positive
feelings and excitement translate into a fitter nation, where talented children get the
opportunity to do sport at the highest level and everyone else has the
opportunity to take part?’ At the moment we have no way of knowing, but it has
set me thinking about the legacy that I would like to leave.
One of my favourite modern worship songs talks about
‘serving the Kingdom of God in my generation,’ and ‘giving my life, for
something that will last forever’ – the question is … what will that be?
As a writer, I hope
that my words will linger in the minds of some of my readers, and perhaps make
a difference to the way that they live or serve God. It’s like tossing a stone
into a pond. The ripples spread outwards and you have no idea how far they will
spread.
Ethel and I
started a coffee morning to share our faith with our neighbours. Many
good things came out of that five years. People were encouraged and
strengthened in their spiritual journey, but, as far as I know, no one met
Jesus for the first time.So I was thrilled when I read a review of my book ‘What
Me Lord?’ I wrote it because other people caught the vision of using their
homes for evangelism, and I was asked to write about how we had done it. The
lady who had written the review hadn’t even bought the book, but found it in
the library. She was excited and challenged by the ideas it contained and
gathered some friends to begin a coffee morning in her village.
A number of people came to faith over the years that she
opened her home to her neighbours, including her husband. Then she moved and
left her friends to carry on what she had begun, while she started again in
her new area. The she moved again I met
her when she invited me to speak to the third group she’d formed – she had
cancer and died a few months later, but what a legacy she left behind her! And
I had a small share in that legacy, even if it was once removed.
So how do you create a legacy? A successful writer in the
USA, Cec Murphy, gives hundreds of dollars away each year to allow beginning
writers to go to a writer’s conference. Other experienced writers invest time
in helping the less experienced put their dreams into words. But of course it
isn’t just writers who leave a legacy. We all leave something behind us – the
question is will it be for good or for ill?
As I watch
children passing our house on their way to school I’m reminded of the elderly
lady who prayed for a group of teenaged boys who scuffled their way to a school
near her home. One of them was George Verwer, a teenager who came to faith and
a within a short time started Operation Mobilisation www.uk.om.org .
This organisation now has 6.100 people
working in 110 countries reaching out to people through literature, the
creative arts, relief and development work, and so many other ways, to tell
people how their lives can be changed when they meet Jesus.
One elderly lady. I wonder if she felt that there was
little she could do? Maybe she was
housebound. I’m not sure if she ever knew what her prayers had been the
foundation for. But she did what she could, where she could, by using whatever
she had. And God increased her giving a hundredfold.
