Legacy
“Legacy isn’t measured by what we accomplish in our lifetimes. It’s measured by our coaching tree, our mentoring chain. It’s measured by the fruit we grow on other people’s trees.”
– Mark Batterson
I recently read the story of Amos Alonzo Stagg in Mark Batterson’s book, The Double Blessing.
You may or may not know the story of Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, but you have probably been touched by his life’s work in one way or another!
Coach Stagg coached the original Monsters of the Midway at the University of Chicago for four decades, winning two national titles in 1905 and 1913. His football teams invented football as we know it. He’s the one who came up with the huddle, the onside kick, the T formation, and… the forward pass! To say he made significant contributions to the game of football would be an understatement, but this is not his legacy.
When he accepted the invitation to coach at the University of Chicago, he gave an acceptance speech of sorts to the university president: “After much thought and prayer, I decided that my life can best be used for my Master’s service in the position you have offered.” Stagg coached football until he was 98 years old. But he didn’t just coach his players, he discipled them.
He was once interviewed by a local reporter after a winning season about a job well done. Stagg turned to the reporter and said, “I won’t know how good a job I’ve done for 20 years. That’s when I’ll see how my boys turned out.”
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Coach Stagg is in the College Football Hall of Fame. But you might be surprised to learn that he was inducted as a player and a coach! But not only that, he was also inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
In fact, he coached football, basketball, and baseball at the University of Chicago. He turned down six offers to play professional baseball, but he helped a lot of future major leaguers with another one of his inventions, the batting cage!
Blessings Received vs. Blessings Bestowed
We live in a world that has convinced us that our lives are measured by what we’ve accomplished and acquired.
And while it’s tempting to buy into this mindset, we all know… whether we believe in God or not we know this is true… that the true measure of our lives is not the measure of the blessings we’ve received, but the blessings we’ve bestowed!
Still, most people want to be blessed, but so few want to be a blessing.
However, when we take the blessings we’ve received and find a way to use them to bless others, it becomes a double blessing!
And you see this in one of the first places we read about blessing in scripture, in the life of a man named Abram.
Listen to this short story found in Genesis 12.
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” – Genesis 12.1-3
This story is about a man named Abram, but you might know him better as Abraham. If you keep reading, God will change his name a few chapters later (ch 17).
The name Abram means “Exalted father.” The name Abraham means “Father of many nations.” Which is interesting, because Abram at this point in the story doesn’t have any children, much less a whole nation of descendants. In fact, his wife Sarai is unable to have children (11.30).
So God speaks directly to Abram making what seems like an impossible promise. But before the promise there is a prerequisite. Before the blessing there is a calling.
Leave and Let Go
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “LEAVE…”
Leave what? Leave who?
Abram is living in his native country. He’s living where his family lives. And God calls him to leave all of this behind to go to an unknown place. To step out of certainty and into uncertainty.
God is asking Abram to let go of what he knows, let go of what he’s holding on to, let go of what is comfortable, let go of what’s familiar and safe and here’s the invitation… start wandering toward an unknown place and I’ll let you know when you get to where I want you to go.
Before God can bless Abram, Abram has to LEAVE.
Before you can take hold of the blessing God has for you, you have to leave and let go of whatever you’re holding on to.
What you hold on to is often what is holding you back. And far too often what we hold on to weighs us down and keeps us from being free to enjoy the blessing of God.
So God says to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.”
The Order of God’s Blessing
Here’s the order: If you LEAVE and GO, I will SHOW YOU what I have for you.
This is God’s order. This isn’t the order we prefer. But this is the order that requires faith.
The Calling comes before The Blessing
Leave & Go comes before I’ll Show You The Land
Our order looks like this: SHOW ME what you have for me, then I’ll LEAVE AND GO.
Or… we’ll say we’ll go, but we would prefer to SKIP the journey from where we are to where God wants us to be. And if the distance between LEAVE and GO and SHOM ME the land is too great, if the journey is too long, we bail out.
We don’t have enough faith to make it through the middle. When it gets hard, when the tension is high, we complain. We leave. We turn back. We turn on our friends. We even blame others.
BUT…
If we can find the faith to LEAVE and GO and trust that God will SHOW us the way and SHOW us the land He has promised, and if we have the faith and the resolve to make the journey from where we are to where God wants us to be, then we have an opportunity to experience the incredible blessing of God.
Limitations or Diving Possibilities?
Listen to what God says to Abram…
2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous (make your name great), and you will be a blessing to others.
Remember, Sarai was unable to have children. But this physical fact does not affect God’s supernatural blessing.
Have you ever trusted God for something that seemed impossible? For something that didn’t make sense on paper? Have you ever felt God nudging you to step out in faith?
You can’t receive God’s blessing if you never leave and go and step out in faith. You’ll never see God do impossible things if you remain in your comfort zone.
The blessing of God often times is on the other side of uncomfortable. If you don’t believe me just ask Abram and Sarai.
Just because we believe something can’t happen, something can’t change, doesn’t preclude God from being God and God blessing who He wants to bless in seemingly impossible ways.
We see our limitations. God sees Divine possibilities.
We think about what we can’t do. God thinks about what he can do.
Blessed to be a Blessing
God wants to bless you. But watch this… God’s blessing isn’t just FOR YOU!
God says to Abram, I want to bless you SO THAT you can be a blessing to others. The original blessing becomes a double blessing!
Back in January a Starbucks customer announced on TikTok that he was ending a 23 car pay-it-forward streak when he learned that the order he would have to pay for was $46! His order was only $6. Could he have paid the $46? I don’t know. That’s a pretty big order at Starbucks for sure. But by deciding not to, the blessing stopped with him.
Abram decided to trust God, to receive the blessing and allow the blessing to flow through him to those around him and become a double blessing.
If you know the rest of Abram’s story, you know he was far from perfect. And this is important to understand because some of us think that our imperfections keep us from experiencing the blessings of God.
Perfection isn’t a prerequisite for the blessing of God, but long obedience in the same direction is.
And remember, it’s often in and through our imperfections that the blessings of God flow through us to others.
Abram leveraged his life for the purpose of God and the glory of God. God blessed him so that He could bless the world through Him.
We’ve Been Blessed through Abraham!
That’s exactly what God did. If you fast forward to the New Testament, this is what the Apostle Paul wrote about Abram who became known as Abraham:
8 What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would make the Gentiles right in his sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.” 9 So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.
14 Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith. – Galatians 3.8-9; 14
If you are a believer in Jesus today, if you are a person of faith, then you are a direct recipient of a blessing that was promised to Abraham and flowed through Abraham to us! Through that original blessing we have received the promised Holy Spirit!
And God’s original invitation to Abraham, to walk with Him, has been extended to you! God wants to walk with you! God’s original promise to Abraham, I will bless all nations through you, has been extended to you. God wants to bless others through you! He wants you to become a double blessing!
What is your legacy?
Perhaps a better question is, WHO is your legacy?
Coach Stagg understood his legacy wasn’t found in games won, championships, or Hall of Fame inductions. His legacy was those young men who would become husbands, fathers, and leaders in their communities.
He measured his life by the kind of men they would one day become.
This is the counterintuitive, upside down nature of the Kingdom of God… If you allow the blessing to flow through you to others you’ll be blessed even more than you could imagine. In fact, it becomes a double blessing!
So what if you became the kind of person that allowed the River of the Water of Life to flow through you to those around you?
What if you didn’t just concern yourself with cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in your life, but what if you became interested in how you could cultivate the Fruit of the Spirit in others people’s lives.
What if your legacy was all about growing fruit on other people’s trees?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a long list of people who are growing fruit on my tree.
My guess is if you’re a person who is bearing good fruit, there’s some people on your list as well who have helped cultivate, water, and produce the fruit that is growing on your tree.
May we measure our lives by the fruit we grow on other people’s trees.
When we do, as we do, we will realize the double blessing. That we have been blessed to be a blessing.
The Double Blessing
How do you do this? Write down all the ways you’ve been blessed, then look for ways to pass it forward. Write down all the people who have been a blessing to you, then look for ways to do for others what they have done for you.
There’s someone in your life who needs an encourager. There’s someone in your life who needs a note from you. Someone needs you to take them for a cup of coffee, or to buy them lunch. Some young parent needs your advice. Some young couple needs to hear your story. I’m sure there’s someone who needs a financial blessing you can share, but more often than not the greatest blessings aren’t financial, they are time, discipleship, advice, counsel, encouragement, and love.
When you stop and think about it, we’ve all been blessed in one way or another.
The question isn’t, have we been blessed? The question is, what will we do with our blessings? Will we come to realize that we have been blessed to be a blessing? Will we experience the double blessing?
My hope and prayer is that we will.
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