You Will Be Forgotten

Most of us will be forgotten within a few generations. That’s not a tragedy — it’s an invitation. The goal isn’t to be remembered, but rather, to be faithful.

Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

You will be forgotten.

So will I.

Three generations from now, most of us will be a nameless face in a digital (presumably) scrapbook that nobody can identify. You know this to be true because you’ve gone through the photo albums of your own grandparents or great-grandparents and couldn’t place names with faces. But that doesn’t mean you can’t leave your spiritual mark – even if people don’t remember you. [I wrote paragraph this in my devotional Finishing Well: Living with the End in Mind, and I believe it now more than ever.]

In the neighborhood I grew up in, one of the roads is named after a man named Leo, the beloved custodian of our local elementary school. His house was on the corner, one block away from the school. But if a person is younger than fifty, he or she will have no memory of Leo while driving down the street bearing his name.

The rallying cry after September 11, 2001, in America was “never forget,” but that was twenty-four years ago. An estimated 94 million people have been born in the United States since then and don’t have the same tie or emotion associated with that awful day. That’s not a knock against them. It’s just a reality. It’s hard for them to never forget something they weren’t alive for when it happened.

Look through this list of U. S. presidents. I bet there are quite a few that you don’t know anything about. And how many of the names of the presidents of the Continental Congress or Confederation Congress do you know?

I don’t say any of this to be a downer. It’s just a reality. Over time, people are forgotten. And I find that notion to be incredibly freeing.

Our goal shouldn’t be focused on being remembered, but on being faithful. Faithful to God, first. Faithful to our loved ones. And faithful to the work God has put in front of us.

That’s not to say I don’t believe in legacy, but just not for the sake of it.

I do believe we can feel the echoes of legacy for many generations in a family. Current generations might not know a thing about their great-great grandparents, but their ancestors set the tone for their family that still ripples today. Maybe it’s a ripple of prayer, a Bible reading habit in front of children or in loving people well.

These are the kind of legacies that don’t need a nameplate or a biography. It’s the legacy of presence.

I think of the people who shaped me most. While I remember their names, I mostly remember the way they listened and how they made me feel.

That’s the kind of legacy I want to leave. Not one that demands to be remembered, but one that quietly blesses the world long after I’m gone.

So yes, you will be forgotten.

So will I.

But maybe that’s not the point.

The point is to live deeply enough that forgetting doesn’t diminish the impact. To live in such a way that our absence still leaves warmth. To live not for applause, but for love.

What kind of quiet legacy are you leaving behind today?