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6 Types of Spiritual Legacies

6 Types of Spiritual Legacies

Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of men. Psalm 66:5

In addition to preparing well for death and blessing our loved ones by creating a practical legacy, we can also create a spiritual legacy. A spiritual legacy may include the stories, values, and wisdom of our lives that point to the “awesome deeds” of God (Psalm 145:6). Such a spiritual legacy is a gift our loved ones will cherish for years to come.

Our Lived Spiritual Legacy

In part, we create our spiritual legacy by the way we live our days. I will never forget my grandmother studying her well-worn Bible in preparation for teaching her Sunday school lesson. Maybe you remember finding your mother on her knees by her bed; another friend recalls a favorite uncle pointing out how marvelously God designed caterpillars and butterflies. When we take time out of our busy days to read children books, sing them songs, or listen to their stories, we demonstrate the goodness and kindness of a heavenly Father who delights in them. Every way we live out God’s story of grace in our lives becomes part of our spiritual legacy.

Our Recorded Spiritual Legacy

In addition to our lived spiritual legacy, we can pass on our God-given wisdom and gospel-grown gratitude in written form or in an audio or video recording. There are numerous types of legacies we night leave: stories, letters, blessings, albums, or lists. To create such a legacy will take time, intentionality, and prayer, but we can press forward, remembering that after we’re gone, our loved ones often become ready audiences to hear our deepest beliefs and best stories—about them, about life, about God. Let’s consider each type of spiritual legacy.

Six Types of Spiritual Legacy

  1. Simple stories:

The stories we leave need not be complex or long. My mother used a tool called the ObitKit, which asked questions about her school, her work, and her early life. Reading her answers, which were only a few sentences long, I discovered she missed getting valedictorian because she got a bad grade in PE and that she had worked on the first Univac computer, which is now in the Smithsonian. As I read the answers she wrote, I saw how God had woven redemption into her life. To write your story, consider simple questions regarding school or work, or tell the story of how you came to trust the Lord or of a time when your faith was tested. If you’re stuck, check out Storycorps, which offers a vast repository of questions to get you started.

  1. Letters:

You might also want to write a letter. You could begin a yearly practice of writing a letter to loved ones on their birthday or at Christmas. In that letter, you might observe ways you see God working in their lives, or you might share ways God has been working in your life. Because your loved one may not keep the letter, you may want to make a copy of it and store it to be given to them when you die.

  1. Blessings:

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you…” Following the model of Numbers 6:23-26, write or record a simple blessing for your loved one. Daniel Taylor, in his book Creating a Spiritual Legacy: How to Share Your Stories, Values, and Wisdom, suggests either writing in the form of a prayer or in the form of “words that wish them well” (Taylor, 41). Before you write the blessing, consider prayerfully the ways this person reflects the image of God and shares the gospel story in their lives. Consider how you’d like to see them grow in years to come. A blessing should always be positive and full of hope and faith, but it may also contain humor. Taylor recommends beginning with the words, “May you….” or “I hope for you….” (Taylor, 41). Such blessings can become powerful sources of joy and hope for the recipient.

  1. Albums:

An album might be a scrapbook, a digital album, or a journal that contains many memories from your life. Some people have been creating a spiritual legacy for years by scrapbooking. If you, like me, struggle to put scrapbooks together, you might try an online tool like Mixbook or Shutterfly, which allows you to upload photos and digital scans. For my husband’s sixtieth birthday, I gathered photos from across his lifespan along with scans of handwritten letters from our children and dear friends and created a book on Mixbook. StoryWorth is another legacy service which provides the opportunity to send a loved one a question each month and then takes the responses and creates a book for you. Such albums can provide a rich and vivid history.

  1. Lists:

To express your values and wisdom, you can create lists: lists of favorite Bible verses and how they have encouraged you, lists of life lessons, lists of things you enjoy, lists of people who influenced you and how, lists of ways you want to be remembered, etc. Just write a number at the top of the page, the topic, and start writing: “Five Things I Learned through Trials,” “Five Things I Enjoy,” etc. Such lists can be simple to create and yet can reveal much about how God has shaped you.

Just Do It

No matter which form you choose, begin today by taking one small step. Schedule a time on your calendar to work on your spiritual legacy. Set a timer for twenty minutes and write down your ideas. Gather a group of friends to work together on your legacies. You’ll be amazed at the joy you will discover as you remember the wonders God has done in your life. You’ll be encouraged as you imagine the faith, hope, and love you will share with future generations.

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Elizabeth Reynolds Turnage

Elizabeth Reynolds Turnage

Elizabeth is a life and legacy coach who offers gospel-centered wisdom and equipping to help you live, prepare, and share your life and legacy.

6 Steps to Creating a Practical Legacy

6 Steps to Creating a Practical Legacy

“I told my neighbor I was taking this workshop, and she said, ‘I’m not doing a thing. They can figure it all out after I’m gone.’”

A member of my Organizing Your Life and Legacy workshop shared this comment with our group, and we all shook our heads sadly. The comment doesn’t surprise us—death has become a taboo subject in our culture, less open for discussion than politics and sex.

Reasons abound for death’s denial and distancing, including fear of death, denial of death, and removal of death from the home to the hospital. And yet, like it or not, we’re all dying.

How Scripture Prepares Us for Death

Christians have an advantage as we prepare for death—we can look to Scripture, which helps us understand why people die and offers us hope for life after death. Death resulted from Adam and Eve’s sin for God had warned them that in the day they ate of the tree, they would “surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Jesus died on a cross for our sins: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Pet. 2:24). Because Jesus rose from the dead, those who trust in him for salvation need no longer fear death: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…” (John 11:25). Armed with an understanding of death and the confidence of life everlasting, we can face our mortality and prepare for death.

Create a Practical Legacy

Psalm 90:12 exhorts us, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” One way to number our days is to plan for our death by gathering the essential information our loved ones will need if we are incapacitated or have died. To create what I call a “practical legacy,” divvy up the process into six actionable steps and then schedule times each week or each month to work on them.

  1. Prepare an advance directive.

Also known as a “living will,” an advance directive helps to guide medical care decisions in the case of incapacitation. It allows you to appoint a health care proxy or surrogate and to indicate what kind of treatment you would wish for or decline in medical crisis. My husband and I have used Five Wishes to prepare ours, but you can also find simple directives on most state or hospital websites. Two books that offer helpful biblical counsel on preparing advance directives are Dr. Bill Davis’ Departing in Peace: Biblical Decision-Making at the End of Life and Dr. Kathryn Butler’s Between Life and Death: A Gospel-Centered Guide to End of Life Medical Care. For more thoughts on medicalized dying, see this article. Considering our own incapacitation and imagining different scenarios at the end of life can be intimidating, but when we clarify and communicate our wishes, we bless our loved ones with an indispensable guide to making difficult decisions at a grievous time.

  1. Give one trusted person access to your important passwords.

In a day in which phones and other devices hold valuable confidential information, it’s essential to keep them secure with a password and to share that password with one trusted person. Additionally, gather all your essential passwords. While my eighty-three-year-old mother recorded hers in a basic Word document, and that sufficed, most of us will need to use a password keeper like Lastpass or 1Password to contain all of this information more securely.

  1. Appoint a Durable Power of Attorney. 

Appoint someone who will have the legal power to act on your behalf if you are incapacitated or have died. My mother had appointed me as her power of attorney and put my name on her checking account before she died. Thanks to her foresight, paying her bills after her death did not involve jumping through legal hoops. It can help to make your durable power of attorney and health care surrogate the same person.

  1. Make a will and appoint an executor. 

Make a will and appoint someone to oversee handling your affairs after your death. An estate lawyer I spoke with suggests that we visit a lawyer to prepare our wills, noting that online documents do not usually suffice except in the case of very simple estates with few assets.

  1. Gather essential information. 

Not only will your family benefit if you gather all of the details of your life into one place, but you also benefit. Can you imagine the peace of knowing exactly where to locate details about your medical history, personal history, insurance information, titles and deeds, credit cards, bills, and methods of payment, etc.? Although it is not written by a Christian, the book Get It Together: Organize Your Records So Your Family Won’t Have To offers a comprehensive guide to help you in this process.

  1. Make decisions about burial or cremation and end of life services.

Considering what will happen to our body after we die may be hard for us, but imagine the peace we can give to our loved ones by doing so. One of our workshop participants shared an inspiring story of her twenty-five-year-old niece: her father had died when she was twenty-two, and he had left a practical legacy. She was inspired to write out her own wishes for the end of her life. When she died three years later in a tragic accident, this legacy provided great comfort to her mother in her distress.

While it is daunting to consider the end of our lives, as Christians, we face death with hope, the hope of resurrection. Given that hope, we can enter hard decisions now to prepare a practical legacy that will guide and comfort our loved ones in their season of grief. Call a friend today and encourage and assist one another in the process of preparing a practical legacy. In addition to preparing our practical legacy, we will also want to leave a spiritual legacy, passing on the wisdom we have gained to the next generation. We’ll discuss how to create a spiritual legacy in part two of this series.

A Prayer about Missing People and Places at the Holidays

A Prayer about Missing People and Places at the Holidays

“My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Psalm 84:2

Gracious and Hospitable Lord,

As Thanksgiving comes around, 

our family misses my mom and her home. 

For many years, we visited her there, 

but her home now belongs to another; 

her new home is in heaven with you.

I know many face a similar sorrow. 

It will be their first holiday without their loved one. 

In a season when we may feel exiled from familiar places, 

draw our hearts to your ever-present 

and always abundant hospitality. 

You make homes for sparrows and nests for swallows (Psalm 84:3),

and you have invited us to be your sons and daughters. 

Even as we limp through the Valley of Weeping,

You make it a place of springs (Psalm 84:6), 

refreshing our hearts with your gentleness and joy.

When we tend to believe the lie that we are bereft, 

remind us that you are our “sun and shield,” 

bestowing “favor and honor”, 

assuring us, “No good thing 

do I withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).  

In the name of your Son, 

who came to walk this earth with us 

that we might live in heaven with you. 

Amen.

Read Psalm 84.

 

A Prayer about Learning from Younger People

A Prayer about Learning from Younger People

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

1 Timothy 4:12

All-Wise God,

Just as we prayed yesterday 

about seeing that each member of the body of Christ 

has gifts given by the Spirit to bless the whole body, 

today we remember to look to and learn from youth in our body. 

I recently heard a podcast with a senior ministry team leader

 interviewing a teenager from her church,* 

and the young woman urged older people 

to reach out to teenagers and younger people, 

saying young people desperately need their wisdom and experience. 

This young woman set an example for me 

“in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” 

Lord, we confess, sometimes we don’t know 

what to do with younger generations, 

and yet, if we will look at them with compassion 

as Jesus looked on people of every age, 

if we will listen with curiosity, 

we have much to learn. 

And, as this teen woman so wisely said, 

“We need people in our lives

 who have walked with Christ much longer than we have.” 

Oh, Heavenly Father, may we heed her cry; 

may we be willing to learn from younger people 

and to pour into their lives. 

In Jesus’ compassionate name. Amen.

 

*Podcast can be found here: “Sanctuary Spectacles: Being a Teenage Woman in the Church” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-encourage-womens-podcast/id1299190093?i=1000581527096

 

A Prayer about Work, Wealth, Women, and Wisdom

A Prayer about Work, Wealth, Women, and Wisdom

For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. 1 Kings 11:4

Author God,

May we learn from Solomon:

We remember how you, 

the all-powerful King of the Universe, 

actually humbled yourself to offer Solomon anything he asked for: 

“Ask what I shall give you.” 

And Solomon, loving you, honoring you, 

humbly asked for “an understanding mind to govern my people” (1 Kings 3:5, 9). 

Solomon does show this wisdom for awhile, 

and he gets busy working to build you a temple. 

But then some cracks in his foundation become fissures, 

and before we know it, 

he has married 700 women 

who lead him to worship other gods (1 Kings 11:1-8). 

Lord, we want to cry out, 

“How could he,” 

but we know the truth, 

that whether it is work or wealth or women or wine 

or families or football or fashionable things—

we can take any good gift you give us 

and make it into a god we worship more than you. 

Merciful God,

we pray, show us the things that block us 

from loving you 

and following you 

and serving you 

and enjoying you. 

Thank you for giving us rest in Jesus. May we return to him today.

In Jesus’ kingly name. Amen.

Read 1 Kings 11.

A Prayer about Telling Future Generations about the Lord

A Prayer about Telling Future Generations about the Lord

Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. Psalm 22:30

Gracious Father,

Whether we have grandchildren or not, 

we admit Lord, 

we can collapse into worry 

about future generations. 

With all of the uncertainty 

about the economy, global health, politics, religious persecution, 

what will life be like for them? 

Faithful Lord, please recenter us 

that we may let go of our worry 

and pray about the matters that matter the most:

Show us how best to proclaim 

your righteousness, 

your goodness, 

and your grace 

to the future generations.

Show us how to humble ourselves 

that we might show future generations 

your love and delight in them.

Give us the words to tell the stories of our lives 

that reveal 

your kindness 

and wisdom 

and redemption.

Help us to live out 

our complete and utter dependence on you 

in a way that attracts future generations 

to a life of trust in you.

As we live and pray and speak the good news of the gospel, 

may future generations be drawn 

to seek your face, 

to trust in your salvation.

In Jesus’ child-loving name. Amen. 

Read Psalm 22:25-31; Psalm 78:1-8.