But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:20-21 NIV
I was given a box of letters and other miscellaneous items from my grandparents’ childhood and their young adult lives. There were letters that grandpa wrote to grandma while they were dating and letters from grandma’s family to her at school. As I was sorting through these letters, I came across one in particular that I stopped to read. There were two sheets of paper and each paragraph was written by a different member of her family telling the current news about themselves. Her sister wrote of the cut on her hand which was why her writing was particularly messy; her other sister wrote about how it was too icy to go into town so they had been cooped up inside, and her father wrote that he was milking Old Bessie and that he missed my her [my grandma’s] help! These were words on a page but they weren’t just words contained in these letters. These letters held collected moments—remembered days—snapshots of days from a bygone era—they were stories of lives lived.
In with all these letters were also old photographs: family portraits, snapshots, and school photos. I saw my grandfather grow from a boy, to a young man, to an adult, to the grandfatherly, old man I knew and loved so dearly. I have pictures of him as a farm boy with his best cow in the 1940s, as a young business man standing next to my grandmother, and pictures of him holding us grandkids. All of these things are the paraphernalia of a life gone by—a letter, a photo, a random token from a vacation. These everyday things are the artifacts left in one’s wake.
And yet they are not all the things, they are the physical reminders of a life on earth, but there are the nontangible and much more valuable remnants too. The memories of my grandfather teaching me to ride a bike, grandma teaching me her cooking skills, and memories of her hospitable nature to anyone who crossed her doorstep. There are the memories of weekly trips to the library, how they were always encouraging me to read, setting an example in front of me. These are the things I remember. All of these things and so much more are the legacy of my grandparents to me.
We will all leave behind a legacy when we are gone. Jesus did. He implored His disciples to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. He left an unparalleled legacy of loving others. Even nonbelievers agree with this. Our possessions will remain on this earth, our souls will leave our bodies, and yet a legacy will remain. Jesus told the young lawyer to sell all he had to the poor, because his legacy was not in his possessions but in his heart. What is in our hearts? It is easy to shake our heads at the young lawyer who went away sad because he was very wealthy, but do we acknowledge our own follies and foolishness? We place so much value in things—it’s hard not to. But what of the value of memories we leave with the ones we love? What will they remember about us?
What about the intangible in our lives? The people in our lives, are we loving them well? The spiritual gifts we’ve been given, are we utilizing them well? We will leave behind remnants of these gifts as well, not tangible as an old letter or photograph, but a snapshot nonetheless of our life. The base truth is that we do need things in this life. Money is useful, a house keeps us comfortable and insulated from the elements, but these too are just things. We can look at another biblical figure, Simon Peter who, though he had many foibles, ultimately got it right, dedicating his life to following Christ.
We will leave others behind and they will remember who we were. What we did for a living won’t necessarily be remembered as much. Some of these people will be responsible for going through the memorabilia of our lives. Some will go through the stacks of memories we have left imprinted on their minds. Will they shake their heads at us like we do the young lawyer in the Bible or will they remember us like Simon Peter whose antics we laugh at but ultimately admire because he got it right. Are we getting it right?
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