The Longing for Legacy: Part 1 - Introduction

I was 14 years old. My father had made national headlines with a string of crimes which had him facing up to 76 years behind bars. My dad had not been around much anyway, but this time it looked like he was going away for good. His father before him, even more of an absentee, had abandoned him at an even younger age. My grandfather was still nowhere to be found. At least I knew where my dad was. I would get his letters from prison, but a time came when the language he started to use was different. He talked of God, the Bible, and prayer, and increasingly he spoke of Jesus Christ like he knew him. Good for him, I thought. A little late for religion though. My own destiny was questionable at best, and it seemed that side of our family tree was hopeless. I wanted to cut it down, but later I would learn of a single prayer my father would send from a federal prison cell in Springfield, Missouri. He asked God to send someone, someone to reach his sons and his father, reach them with the love and forgiveness that he had experienced. How God would answer that prayer could not be imagined, and what would happen next would impact generations. Hey, Victorious Living family. My name is B.J. Emerson, Digital Media Manager, and one of the team members here at Victorious Living Ministries. I want to welcome you to my first series called The Longing for Legacy, where we're going to be answering the question, what happens when we leave our legacies in the hands of a loving God? If you're incarcerated today, I haven't been where you are, but I have been where your children are. You see, most of my teenage years, my father was doing both federal and state time, and I grew up as a child of an incarcerated parent. You see, his addiction to drugs, alcohol, and gambling drove him to extort money out of people by making fake bombs, putting it in, putting them in their businesses, their grocery stores, and then asking them for money. And he did this 26 times across three states in 1983. I was 14 years old when my father was arrested by the FBI in 1984. What would happen next is just a long string of miracles that are really hard to believe. Now, I'm going to disclose all these things over this series of videos here, but I just wanted to paint a picture for you of the brokenness that was in my family and the situation that we were facing at the time. It was very bleak and very dark. Maybe that's where you are today. Maybe you're in a hopeless situation, and maybe you're looking to make a difference somehow where you are. This series is designed to hopefully encourage you, to show you what's possible when we leave our legacy in the hands of a loving God. So, our story is told in a book that we wrote together, my father and I, in a book called The Hearts of the Fathers. After sending thousands of these

books, these little books, into prisons, we got a lot of feedback, got letters from those who are incarcerated who wanted to see restoration in their family. And so, we took that feedback, and we put it into another book. And that's what this series is about, how to find hope in restoration by leaving your legacy in the hands of a loving God. So, back to my story. Imagine all the things that a father misses when you have a teenager at home, all these life events that are happening. Let's see, I got my first car, my license, graduated high school, then went into the military, graduated boot camp. Now, to be fair, I squeezed a lot of things into the five years that my father was actually gone. I then got married and had a daughter all in that time period. My father missed those things. So, what happens is that layers of bitterness and unforgiveness start stacking up for each event that is missed. Talking to my father on the phone, no, I can't be there. And just the disillusionment that just kind of piles up over time. And now you're dealing with this in this relationship. So, this brokenness, this darkness, this hopelessness that we were facing with the potential for so many years behind bars, you know, it really was a hopeless situation. I wanted to cut down my family tree. Some of the headlines at the time included, prison term begun by bomber, jail term set in extortion. Now, maybe you have your own headlines. Either way, and whether you know it or not, you have a legacy. Now, in part one, we're going to introduce this concept of legacy and why we long for it. Let's define legacy this way. The impact we endeavor to create with our lives. This is what we want to do. This is who we want to be. This is the difference we want to make with our lives and the impact that we want to have on others. So why do we long for it? There might be a number of reasons. Maybe we just want to do better than the last generation did. Maybe I wanted to do better than my father did. Maybe I want to leave something greater for the next generation that comes after me. Even if I failed in my generation, maybe I want to leave something better for them,

even if I was not able to do what I wanted to do in my life. Maybe I just want to make a contribution to future generations. We all want to make a difference and live a life of meaning. We want to be a part of something greater. So how do you know if you have a longing for legacy? Let me read you some signs. How do you know if you have a longing for legacy? You have regrets over broken relationships and desire restoration. You feel imprisoned by unforgiveness, or there's a cycle of dysfunction in your family line that you'd like to end. These are some of the themes that we heard in the letters that were sent to us after we wrote our first book. If any of these resonate with you, I would encourage you to keep listening. So let me go back to the definition of legacy. This is the impact we endeavor to create with our lives. Now, I'd like to tie this legacy concept into something related, which is our wills and our kingdom that we have, that we maintain. Now, if you don't think you have a kingdom, just think of it as one of my favorite authors and theologians, Dallas Willard does. Here's his definition. Your kingdom is your range of your effective will. In other words, the things that are around you that you control, okay?

You have a will and you have certain things that you have control over, and that is literally your kingdom. So if I wanna move my furniture around in my house, well, I can do that, that's within my kingdom. And if that's my will, then I can do that and let it be done, right, in my kingdom. Now, maybe your kingdom isn't what it once was in terms of the things that you have control over, but you understand the concept. It's those things that you can exert your will over. Your kingdom starts with your body, your surroundings, the people around you, the things that you can exert control over. That is your kingdom. And long-term, your influence becomes your legacy. That's it. But I wanna introduce here some well-known scripture that talks about another kingdom and another will. I want us to look at the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, 9. Now, the disciples had asked Jesus, tell us how we should pray. And he says, pray in this manner. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Okay, so we have wills, we have kingdoms, we have legacies that we want, but now we're introduced to, well, there's a God in heaven who has a will and a kingdom

that we're now supposed to pray that it comes here on earth. What happens when we're not in alignment with that? What happens when our kingdom conflicts with his kingdom? And actually, the biggest threat to his kingdom is our kingdom, is our will, when we're rebellious and we wanna do things that aren't in alignment with his kingdom. What happens then? So this could be seen as bad news. What happens when the will and the kingdom of the creator of the universe conflicts with your will and your kingdom that you're managing, right? There is another that has a desire for legacy. And what usually happens is we see that as a wrench being thrown into our plans for our lives. But here's my point with this. And what I've learned over the years and what I've seen in when I've seen the arc of the goodness of God in my life and in my family's life and the restoration that happened, which I'll get to, I can see that his plans and his kingdom and his will is better than mine. That's the long and short of it. The good news is that his plans are better. They are bigger. And his kingdom is greater. Isaiah 55, nine says, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

It says in Matthew 6, 33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you as well. There is a better option to seeking our own kingdom. So I think this is something that everyone has to deal with. We have our own will, our own desires, and we want to make a difference. We want to. do things our way. We have a kingdom that we wanna build and things that we wanna influence, but we hear about this other kingdom, this other will, this plan that this creator has that is moving forward in the earth, but we often run into conflict with that when we are not in alignment with what God wants to do. And we think we know better, we think we can do better than what God has for us, and that oftentimes leads to some hurt, disappointment, and honestly, just hopeless situations. That's where we were in my family when my father was imprisoned and I was going through a lot of things as a teenager without him and just a dark, bleak situation, hopeless situation, and there was nothing inspiring, nothing encouraging out of what I was seeing in my family tree. Now, if that resonates with you, I really have some good news because God, since the beginning,

has been inviting us into what he's doing in the earth. Now, you may, when you think about a father, you may not think of good things, okay? And many people don't. When you think of a father, you're supposed to see inspiration, not incarceration, right? You're not supposed to see felonies in your family tree, hopefully. So the problem is we take what we see in our earthly fathers and we apply that to our heavenly father, and it's not the case. God is a good God. I've seen his character and the arc of his goodness throughout my life, and I can testify, and I just have the confidence to tell you that he is a good God, and he can be trusted with your legacy. Now, here's the thing. Since the beginning, God has been inviting us into what he's doing in creation. He did that with Adam and Eve. That was the beginning of everything created. Adam and Eve said, let them expand what I'm doing here in creation, and he wants us to be a part of that. So that invitation did not go away with the fall. He wants to invite us to be a part of his legacy, which is so much bigger than ours, so much better than ours. Anything that we could come up with,

he wants us to be a part of what he's doing in creation. So where does that leave our legacies? Where does that leave our kingdom? What happens when we leave our legacies in the hands of a loving God? You see, I wanted to cut down my family tree, but God had a better idea, but it would require us to lay down our legacies and put our kingdom and our will under his. So this is where we're at with part one. We have this longing for legacies. We have a will and a kingdom, but God also has a will and a kingdom, and when our wills and our kingdoms are in conflict with his, well, we're gonna experience heartache. I hope through this series, you'll be encouraged, and you'll have a better understanding of who this God is, who this Jesus is, and what he has to offer, and why we should lay down our legacies. So join me next time for part two. Before I close, I wanna pray for you. Lord, I just thank you for the men and women watching this video. I know that you are concerned about what they're concerned about. You know all the details of their situations and their families, the restoration that's possible that you want to do in their lives. I just pray for encouragement for them,

that you would move in their hearts where they are right now, and just start to help them understand the invitation that you have put before them to be a part of what you're doing in the earth, and how that is fulfilling and meaningful for them, and the hope and restoration that they will experience when they engage with you, the God of the universe, and just thank you for your love, and we thank you for Jesus, and it's in his name we pray, amen. So thank you for joining me. Look forward to seeing you for part two. Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement? Write to us at Victorious Living Correspondents, P.O. Box 2751 Greenville, North Carolina, 27836, or email us at hope at vlmag.org. To view Victorious Living Magazine in its entirety, please have your chaplain contact us at 352-478-2098, or email us through our website at vlmag.org. We are happy to provide our Victorious Living Magazine free of charge, in bulk, with or without staples.