There is a line near the end of Hamilton that has stayed with me for years. While I don’t agree with everything in the musical, the writing and storytelling have often made me think:
“Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”
It seems to be a common occurrence as I get older to think about who I am becoming and what I will leave behind.
Not in the sense of being remembered by a lot of people or building some impressive name for myself. I think more about the people closest to me. My wife. My daughter. The kind of home I am helping create. The kind of man they experience every day.
I may never have a huge bank account or a business left to be managed, and I believe legacy goes beyond those things.
In my circles, we often talk about legacy not as possessions, but as the impact you leave behind for the cause of Christ. And yes, I agree with that. But my heart longs for something more tangible. Or maybe just something less generic.
As Hamilton put it: a garden.
What is my garden?
What am I leaving behind in my wife and daughter’s lives?
Am I sowing seeds in my wife and daughter’s lives?
Scripture teaches this principle and truth: we reap what we sow. That includes the good and the bad.
Is how I love my wife, talk with her, cherish her, and see her sowing seeds in her life?
Do I intentionally invest in my daughter, not just in the “dad way” of, “Here is how you do something,” but by simply being present and letting her know, “I am here. I love you.”
It is the daily rhythms that build legacy.
I can’t just wake up 10 years from now and expect to see all the things I hope I became. Will there be good things? Yes. But if I live unintentionally, I will still leave things behind. The question is whether they are the things I meant to leave.
If I live unintentionally, there will still be things left behind. But is it the garden I want to leave behind?
I want my wife to feel seen, secure, and to know I support her with my whole heart. I want my daughter to know I am proud of her and that she is important to me.
Most men would probably say the same thing. Those are good aspirations and a meaningful vision of legacy.
But that kind of legacy is built through intentional daily living.
It doesn’t just happen.
It is built by how I respond when I am tired. When the weight of ministry, expectations, and life is on my shoulders, does she still feel my presence and involvement?
It is built by setting my phone down and looking into my wife’s eyes when she talks to me.
The construction of legacy is in the moments I spend undistracted with my daughter. Making her smile and laugh. Being there for her biggest and littlest moments.
It is in my apologies for my mistakes and quick forgiveness when I am wronged.
It is in silent prayers for their hearts and the unconditional love I choose to give.
Legacy is built in moments that usually do not feel important enough to be called legacy.
That is how I want to live in these moments. Paul writes in Galatians 6, “Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Maybe that is what I need to remember about legacy.
I may not always see what these small moments are producing. Setting the phone down does not feel monumental. An apology does not feel like building a legacy. Sitting beside my daughter or listening to my wife does not feel like planting something that will still matter years from now. But these are exactly the intentional acts that will span my lifetime and grow something bigger than myself in the ones I love most deeply.
Maybe that is what legacy really is.
Being faithful with what I plant today, even if I never get to see the whole garden.
Stay grounded. Live intentionally. Keep moving.