Urgency and Legacy

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As I write this two of my team members and their wives are on the verge of becoming parents. One is in labor as I type; the other has the weekend to go into natural labor before the doctors induce on Monday. Everyone was positive these babies would be born weeks ago due to one couple being pregnant with twins, which typically come early, and the other has been showing signs of labor for as long as three weeks now. I have found for my own children as well as many others I know that these seasons of conception, pregnancy, and delivery in the physical often coincide with conception, carrying, and releasing of future vision and seasons in the spiritual.

So I began to ask myself what the Lord might be saying to our little team here at the University of the Nations in Kona, HI as we wrestle with the visions and dreams God has given us to see a wave of missionaries sent into every dark corner and across every closed border, burning with an unquenchable zeal for the presence of God and redemption of humanity. As this question left my mind I waited with the confidence that I speak to a prayer hearing God who loves to respond with affectionate wisdom and life giving insight.

“You must carry the dreams and visions that I am giving you from MY heart full term.” I continued to listen and he continued to speak. “In this year of new beginnings many are excited about what is being released on the earth, but conception is only the beginning. Development, health, and wholeness require my dreams and vision to be carried full term. Don’t rush my times and seasons. Healthy delivery requires a predetermined gestational period.”

For many, this year started off with an explosion of favor and moves of the Holy Spirit that quickly confirmed the numerous words from trusted voices that 2008 was to be a year of new beginnings. And few things in life can compare with the joy of new beginnings. Few things except the joy of timely, healthy delivery and the new life that especially if carried “full term” has the highest potential for long life. You see beginnings are wonderful but we must not mistake them for endings, maturity, or fullness. They are just what we call them… beginnings.

The answer given to me by the Lord challenges my microwave culture mentality which wants to associate beginnings with fulfillments without realizing that there is a wonderful, sometimes difficult, and certainly patience requiring season that is still ahead to really see the moves of God carry over from beginnings to history changing transformational movements that impact generations to come. The challenge for most of us is not the conception of a vision or dream from God but the carrying, birthing, raising, and releasing of a true God dream. I would call this process of thinking a legacy mindset.

You see, historically, and even denominationally, most of the body of Christ has been strong in one of two areas, urgency or legacy. More Charismatic movements that carry a strong emphasis on evangelism and even the end times tend to also carry a very valid piece of the heart of God called urgency. Without urgency the church would have slipped into unshakable apathy centuries ago. It was a sense of urgency that led the early disciples to quickly take the gospel as far as their lifetimes would allow. It was urgency that led the St. Patrick to Ireland as a missionary to Celts believing God wanted to ransom the heart of a nation. It was urgency that led William Carey to lay down his life for the people of India to see a people trapped in darkness see a great Light. Urgency is a excellent motivator and a very real expression of God’s heart that acts as an injection of faith, boldness, and zeal to the body of Christ.

Other streams of the body of Christ have had a strong understanding of God’s heart for legacy. This is the heart to see a release of blessing in future generations and the willingness to not see the fulfillment in our own lifetimes of the visions we carry. Those with a legacy mindset have tended to devote more time to education, building up the family, and financial stability.

Both are valid, but both are lacking without the other. Sometimes an overemphasis of urgency can lead to losing sight of also living with the long term in mind and actually short circuit the very effort produced by urgency and threaten the longevity of that what God is pouring out. On the other hand many with a legacy driven perspective can easily slip into apathy in the moment and lose the daily zeal that keeps life hot and on the side of risk. A misunderstanding of the need for daily urgency can often times allow a legacy heavy perspective to also short circuit the vision to see something sustained and passed on because it grows cold from lack of daily passion. So, in actuality, for urgency to actually bear fruit it must be lived out in the context of legacy and for a legacy to actually be passed on, urgency will be required. They are mutually inclusive and equally necessary. The coming move of God will be marked by a people that are walking in the fullness of urgency and legacy. Daily urgency for a long-term legacy! The marriage of urgency and legacy will be lived out in daily zeal leading to a life of impact that will keep impacting well beyond our own dreams and visions being carried out. This is what it means to both conceive a vision and carry it until its birth and then actually begin to raise it into maturity.

New beginnings are marked by a sense of urgency! And praise God for the urgency that is being lived out by many in the body of Christ in these days. However, I believe the question more lies on the side of our perspective of legacy. Are we willing to carry this urgency for the long haul, “full term”, until we see the fullness of what God is releasing and maturity of the visions and dreams that are currently being birthed? Are we willing to spend ourselves for something we may never see the full release of in our lifetimes? Are we building something that will still be weathering the storms of life after a hundred years, a thousand criticisms, and a handful of set backs. Are we building a Kingdom that will actually carry into eternity? Even a last days generation must think with a legacy mindset. Legacy goes far beyond just storing something up for future generations it is a kingdom way of living and thinking. It is the life that will carry the Kingdom between mustard seed and mustard tree and a little yeast in the dough to yeast permeating the dough (Mt. 13:31-33). It is an eternal perspective that sees the big picture and both the daily passion and the perseverance and selfless determination that will be required to see any true and lasting move birthed on the earth.

Are we ready to go the distance? Are we ready for the long, boring, and possibly hard periods of time that may come? Will we carry the fire breathed dreams that lie before to their “full term”? Last year I walked through a community in NE Washington that truly understands the importance of urgency and legacy. The community is after a culture of zeal for the presence of God all the while allowing their zeal for the heart of God to be released on the earth to be translated into decisions that are always made in light of the next three generations. As I walked through the homes I asked one man about his huge, timber framed house that resembled what I would have imagined Noah’s ark to look like. He informed me that he had built every part of the house with materials and construction that would allow his home to still be standing in 300 years. My laugh met his serious face as I realized he was not joking. At that moment I had an epiphany that I had never thought in a 300 year term in my life. How will we see successive moves of God that outlast and overpower the previous ones unless we begin to think beyond our five year visions!

Friedrich Nietzsche, famous for coining the phrase, “god is dead”, did have one good thing to say when he talked about the essential thing to a life worth living is a “long obedience in one direction”. Let the weightiness of this statement carry us far beyond the dings of our microwave thinking, pleasure addictions, and commitment phobic tendencies. Oh, to see and be and like Daniel who postured himself in the place of the urgency of daily prayer and at the same time in the legacy driven perseverance to do it for sixty years. Oh to be like David, building the blueprint of revival knowing it was for a future generation. Oh to be like Paul who spoke with his zeal saturated heart, “I press on toward to goal to win the prize”.

Therefore, let us rise up as burning ones, fully consumed with daily passion for the beautiful one and yet filled with a determination to carry this passion “full term”. Let us permeate every decision and thought with the fullness of urgency and legacy. Let us spend our lives in a long obedience in one direction. There is a generation emerging that the world has never seen. And the world will only see them long enough for them to change the world if we are a people of urgency and legacy!

YWAM and Burn 24-7 are partnering together to create a one-year training school that will help develop us as leaders who are anointed, passionate, and zealous as well as full of character, integrity, and Christ like leadership qualities. We want to see vessels raised up that can carry the glory that is being poured out and still yet to be poured out. Could it be that there is glory reserved for a generation that will put equal emphasis on urgency and legacy? If your heart longs for this kind of training then check out our website at fireandfragrance.com.