The legacy of time. All of us leave a legacy; it can be good or bad. The definition of legacy is something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past.
Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Legacy versus Tradition
The thought that keeps going through my head is not how many seeds are in an apple, but how many apples are in a seed? That question goes to legacy. Most people evaluate the number of people they affect through evangelism as their legacy. That is the definition of how many seeds are planted. What is forgotten is that each seed has the potential to be an apple tree, not just an apple. That apple tree will produce many apples over many years. Each apple has many seeds. Some seeds will fall to the ground, become planted, and germinate into another apple tree, producing fruit. A small portion of the apple seeds from that tree will fall to the ground, be planted, and production will continue. That I see as a legacy.
Luke 12:33: “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, and no moth destroys.”
That planting of the first seed is good works. It is the temporal activity of good Christians. It may take years for that seed to grow into a tree that can sustain fruit. That tree may not see that some seeds fell on fertile ground and started to grow. Because we cannot know the future, every seed planted is important. Good works eventually produced a good legacy.
Fleeting Legacies
Most of what we consider legacy is more in line with temporary, fleeting, or transient. We create traditions and cultures that last a few generations and then dissipate. We give material goods that are soon forgotten or replaced. Creating a true legacy is about permanence, rippling through time, separate from ourselves. True legacy does not require or even promote self-awareness. Your family name on a building or a non-profit in your honor is fleeting at best.
Luke 12:20-21: “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night, your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
A legacy isn’t confined to years, decades, centuries, or even millennia; it transcends time and touches eternity. It is about fundamentally shifting the trajectory of humankind, inch-by-inch. This concept may sound too big for it to be achievable. But it is not; you’re planting apple seeds. It is not for you to carry the legacy to a conclusion. You should start with a few seeds and then let God do His thing.
I love this quote: “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”, by Edward Everett Hale. It is the essence of leaving a great legacy. It is about apple seeds, not apple orchards, apple trees, or even individual apples.
Johnny Appleseed
1 Corinthians 3:8: “He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.”
There is already one man who has gone before you. Johnny Appleseed (born Johnathan Chapman; September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845) was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced trees grown with apple seeds (as opposed to trees grown with grafting) to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario, as well as the northern counties of West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance that he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for the Church of New Jerusalem of Manchester, England. Orchards attributed to him still produce fruit today.
Johnathan Chapman left a limited legacy through his distribution of apple seeds and an eternal legacy through his missionary work.
Colossians 3:1-3: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”