Sunday Devotional, 3/17/13
Have you ever thought about what people will say or remember about you once you die? It's interesting what some obituaries say about a deceased person. Have you ever gone to a funeral and heard people share how great the person was, and you wonder if you've wandered into the wrong funeral because that is not how you remember that person? People in general want to be remembered in a positive way after they are gone. Some even leave huge sums of money in order to have something donated in their name, or with a plaque on the wall, or even an entire building named after them. What will your life's legacy be?
When you hear "St. Patrick" what do you usually think of first? Perhaps the color green, shamrocks, leprechauns, pots of gold at the end of a rainbow, good luck, a green river, green beer, etc. Other than the story behind the shamrock, I don't think these are the things St. Patrick would want to be seen as his contribution to society. He was the son of a deacon in the Christian church in Roman Britain. At the age of 16 he was kidnapped and taken to be a slave in Ireland. God told him in a dream how to escape and return to Britain by ship. He became a priest and returned to Ireland and is credited with bringing Christianity to the Irish people. Legend holds that he used a shamrock to explain the three in one of the Holy Trinity. But these are not the things society typically remembers of him.
We don't actually have any control over what people will remember about us or say about us after we are gone. Even a person as important to the church at his time as St. Patrick had no way of knowing that people would distort his legacy into something not only secular, but also fictitious. What is important is that we remain faithful to God and bring others to him. And those lives that have been touched by our faithfulness will be "credited to our account."
"... stand firm in the Lord... let your gentleness be evident to all... what I desire is that more be credited to your account." Philippians 4:1, 5, 17 NIV
For what will people remember us? May they remember us as faithfully sharing God with them with gentleness and love.
written by Jan Andersen
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