Legacy: What you want from your children?

When I hear of people wanting to leave a legacy, it seems to me at first to be a selfish thought. I can't help but think that the aspiring legacy-leavers are simply wanting to be remembered after they're gone for work done on earth or for a blessing bestowed to their progeny. Perhaps it is the case that none of our good deeds are without the tarnish of the sin of pride, as if WE left the legacy and therefore DESERVE to be remembered as GOOD parents or ancestors or leaders. We must humbly remember that unless God had left us offspring, unless God had left us a legacy, a remnant, a progeny, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah. It is God who works in us to will and to act according to His good purpose. We, like servants, have only done our duty. We have only done what God has enabled us to do and ensured that we would do. How can we glory in leaving a legacy? Soli Deo Gloria! Rather, we should glory in the legacy God has left for us.

Here's an example I read about today, taken from my friends at http://fpcj.blogspot.com: Heinrich Bullinger (1504 - 1575) found himself amidst the Reformation, and after much study, sided with the Reformers as his father, a Catholic priest with a common-law marriage, renounced the vows of Catholicism and sided with the Protestants as well. This in turn led Bullinger to marry a former Nun (as Martin Luther had done), Anna Adlischweiler. The marriage was by all accounts a very happy one. They had eleven children! All the sons became pastors.

Now that, to me, is a legacy! What a blessing God gave to this man, that all of his sons became pastors. 3 John 4 says, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." May by the grace of God I recite that glorious Scripture and experience its truth as the days God has ordained for me to spend on this earth draw to a close. That would be legacy enough.