A Legacy of Faith - Susan Barclay

My grandparents weren't perfect people, but they got the main thing right, and in so doing left a legacy of faith that continues to impact the lives of their children and grandchildren today.

I am thankful.

I am thankful for their example of what it looks like to actively seek a deepening relationship with Christ through daily prayer and reading God's Word. I am thankful for their great love for me and for their constant presence in my life, important investments that my earthly father was unable or unwilling to make.

Does their legacy live on in me? Ah, that is the question. I know I have a long way to go in gaining the crucial disciplines of regular prayer and Bible study. I can argue that I have a busy life as a wife, mother, employee, volunteer, and (aspiring) writer. But don't we all have time for the things that really matter to us? If Christ matters most to me - and I say that He does - won't I make time for Him? I'm not sure He buys the "I go to church, I give to the Lord's work, I write on Christian subjects" line. I know I don't.

I am thankful that He is patient with me. I am a work in progress and He knows it. Today, if you struggle as I do to be a disciplined follower of Christ, will you join me in turning over a new leaf? Let us commit to reading God's Word and praying on a daily basis. Even if when we start it's a mere ten minutes, I believe God will bless us and encourage us to spend more time with Him. Suddenly we will "find" time we didn't know we had!

As Steve Green sings in Faithful, may those who come behind us find "the footsteps that we leave, inspire them to believe." There can be no greater legacy.

Passing It On

Posted by Lynda Schultz

Almost fifteen years ago I began to journal the thoughts that came to mind as I meditated on Scripture. It had been my habit to read through the Bible once a year and it occurred to me that it would be a good exercise to write down what I was learning. For three years I added to my notes, amazed that each year something new came out of the same passages I had read so many times before. I had such rich, wonderful, passionate hours with the Lord and His Word over those years. My devotional time had never been so exciting. At the end of those first three years I had hundreds of pages of notes—my own personal commentary on the Bible.

"My own personal..."

Why was it my own personal commentary? If studying the Scriptures from cover to cover every year was so exciting to me, shouldn't it be that exciting a journey for every believer? How could I encourage others to take their own journey through the Word and discover the riches I had found?

Devotional books are plentiful—in North America. But at the time I was working in Venezuela and like so many countries outside of English-speaking ones, Christian books weren't plentiful or inexpensive. Added to the problem was the government's insistence on controlling the American dollars that were necessary to buy translated books that come from outside the country.

So, I thought, I could share what I discovered, encourage the journey in others, and meet a need if I published my material in Spanish from inside Latin America. The Lord gave me an obscure verse from Habbakuk as confirmation: "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it" (2:2, NIV).

Thus began a fourth year reading through and editing all my notes and reducing each day's discoveries to three hundred words or less. In 2009 the Spanish edition of the book was published. Later that year a limited edition was published in English. The Spanish edition has circulated in several Latin American countries, in Central America, in the U.S., Canada, and in Spain.

I'd have to say that the discipline of keeping that spiritual journal was a turning point in my writing. Nothing has been quite as satisfying. Though I am no longer working in Latin America I feel especially blessed that God has allowed me to leave a small legacy behind for the glory of His Name.