How to make a real difference in life

The major birthday season has finally passed in my family. From my mother-in-law in late July to my mother in early September, the space in between – most commonly known as August – is chuck full of family birthdays.
One family member recently hit one of the decade milestones. It was cause for some consternation. It raised the question, “what have I accomplished in my life?”
What have any of us accomplished with our lives? I think that question was best answered by the classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In that movie, George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, learns what life would have been like if he were never born. Needless to say – and this is a spoiler alert if you have not seen the movie – he discovers that all his struggles, all the pains of his life, really did make a positive impact on those around him.
Too often we do not think about what a difference we are making in this world. This is especially true when things seem to be going tough or we feel the world is against us. We can also feel that way when we look back on our lives a fail to see major accomplishments – we fail to see the forest for the trees.
Very few people will have such earth-shattering moments of consequence in their lives. The average person is, well … average. We’re born, graduate from high school and/or college, get married, have kids, become a grandparent and then move to Florida where we put on plaid shorts and black socks and spend our days playing shuffleboard and golf.
Not many get to write the Great American Novel, win a Nobel or Pulitzer prize, score touchdowns in the NFL, star in a movie or fly in space.
Where we make our mark on this earth is in our relationships. How we treat others is far more important that what physical things we leave behind. You can amass a great fortune, only to have your heirs squander it. You can set athletic records that will only be broken in time. You can build buildings that will some day crumble. You can write books that will be long forgotten.
But your relationships – how you treat those who come into your sphere of influence – will last a long time on earth and carry forward into the next phase of life. The most important relationship one can have is with Jesus Christ. Without that, the next phase of life will be nothing to look forward to.
The next most important relationships we have are with our family. No others are more dear to us than a spouse, children and parents. These relationships are so intricately intertwined that how we interact with one affects the others. That holds true as you branch out in your web of relationships to extended family members, classmates, close friends, colleagues and neighbors.
Of the funerals I’ve attended, the ones with the biggest crowds have not necessarily been those of people with great wealth and power, but those who touched lives in deep, meaningful ways. Some people come into our sphere of influence but for a season. Some come and go periodically. Others are there for the duration. No matter how long or brief the time, the way we treat them is the way they will remember us. It correlates to the way they will respond to us. It becomes our legacy.
I’ve been fortunate to have been raised by parents who cared deeply about their children and their community. They were Scout leaders, Sunday school teachers, church bus drivers, Grange leaders, baseball coaches, PTA volunteers, volunteer firefighters, church members, hard workers and are always willing to lend a hand.
They have not only impacted my life and those of my brothers, but also those of our friends and families, along with their own friends, neighbors and so on. There are a lot of us whose lives would be very different today if they were not the kind of people they are.
That legacy has been passed to me and I am trying to instill those values in my children. I’m not perfect and I seem to miss more than I hit, but I strive for the goal. I want my wife and children to think of me as a great asset and a source of unyielding love. I want those who do not like me for whatever reason to at least respect me for being honest, true and fair.
Jesus instructs us in the Bible to love our enemies. That is not an easy thing to do, but I hope that when my time comes that it can be said of me that I lived my life in such a way that I didn’t have any enemies – or at least very few.
And when I reach one of those milestone birthdays down the road, I hope I can look back on many great accomplishments. They will be found in my wife, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and friends and relatives too numerous to count. That will be a great day indeed.