Leaving a Legacy of Integrity
- Theresa Miller
- Aug 27
- 4 min read
Have you ever considered how one decision can affect generations? Strongholds often linger in our lives, unnoticed and unexamined, shaping our responses and choices.
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.
—Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV)
Have you ever considered how one decision can affect generations? Strongholds often linger in our lives, unnoticed and unexamined, shaping our responses and choices. We may avoid healing or self-medicate our pain, but Scripture urges us to consider how our decisions impact the next generation. Take King Hezekiah, for example.
King Hezekiah was a righteous ruler over Judah from approximately 715 to 686 BC, known for his religious reforms, military victories, and preparations against the Assyrian threat. Although he trusted God, 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 39 describe his major flaws as pride and self-centeredness. Hezekiah didn’t show sorrow or concern for the kingdom beyond his lifetime. When the prophet Isaiah warned him that the Babylonians would take his descendants into exile, he felt relieved that it would not affect the peace during his reign.
This attitude is not unique to Hezekiah. We sometimes mirror his perspective, becoming focused on our peace and comfort, but ignoring how our choices ripple into the future.
That tendency became clear to me last month during a visit with my two sisters to see Dad, approximately 2,000 miles away. Our trip (the first to our childhood city in six years and the second in thirty-five years) gave us time to reconnect, browse old photo albums, and put family stories into a broader context.
During our visit, one story from our family history came to light: Imagine a young man offering someone else's identity card to a young woman he is interested in. They become involved, marry, and she gives birth to a son. However, this man leads another life, using a different name, and has another fiancée. He runs off and marries her just two weeks after the first marriage. His first wife tracks him down, discovers his deceit, and presses charges against him. He gets sentenced to jail for bigamy.
Reportedly, he lived trouble-free after serving his sentence. However, does that mean the outcome was positive? He might have had success, but the story doesn’t end there.
The young son of the first woman was my paternal great-grandfather. His mother died four years later of tuberculosis, and he ended up in foster care. While we don't know about the boy’s upbringing, the sin of one man (his absent father) likely affected future generations. Even though we figure things out for ourselves and do better, we leave our descendants to make sense of it all. Without understanding or repair, the cycles often repeat.
Restoration
These stories, passed on through generations, touch us all. That won’t change. We cannot control the decisions of those who came before us or will follow. However, we can acknowledge the weight of our decisions today and make the necessary changes. But we can’t accomplish this with mere willpower. It requires a radical surrender to Christ, trusting Him to do within us what we could never do alone. Through surrender, we open ourselves to grace and divine transformation that enables us to reconcile our pain with God, allowing Him to heal our brokenness so we can pass on a legacy of integrity.
God’s Redemptive Thread
My ancestral storyline, like yours, will contain both good and bad situations if we look far enough back. When we track those stories, we’ll see how one decision (out of thousands of stories connected to us) changes the trajectory of our lives for good or ill. Our choices matter. We’re not looking for perfection. We are interested in how God’s redemptive thread weaves throughout our family storylines, and how our stories get woven into God’s ultimate purpose and narrative.
The Lord intends goodness for our lives and is ready to break the chains that bind us.
Friend, we all come from someone’s imperfect story, but the story does not end with us. We have the power to shape the future by what we avoid and what we heal. What legacy will you choose to leave? It begins with your decision today.
Please take a moment now to search your heart with complete honesty. Do you want peace only in your lifetime, even if it causes hardship for the next generation? Or will you take bold steps today for their good? Commit to an area of your life that you will surrender to God now, knowing this choice can provide hope and transformation for those who follow you. Your legacy starts with action today—choose to shape it for God’s purpose.
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