Lasting Impact

Exodus 1:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%201&version=NIV1984

            Among all the things that could be commented on in this chapter, this in particular struck me:  “Joseph and all that generation passed away . . . Then a kind, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power.”

            I think everybody wants to be remembered.  We want our works to endure, and we want our descendants to carry on in our paths.  I could give you chapter and verse on all sorts of Bible passages that think that through.  I could also give you chapter and verse on all sorts of passages that reflect on the basic hopelessness of that.  The book of Ecclesiastes is a particularly depressing place to turn, with its refrain of ‘Meaningless!’  “You live, you die, no one remembers,” is a decent summary of Solomon’s mood in that book.

            What do you do in the face of that?  I mean, it can lead to despair if you really think those things through.  What’s the point of doing anything, if it’s not going to have a lasting impact?  Wouldn’t it be better to just look out for number 1, take pleasure in what you can, and let it go?  (There was an ancient school of philosophy that thought just that!)

            Let me briefly suggest three approaches.  First, integrity ought to be its own reward.  We do the right things because they are right.  If we do the right things because we hope for something in return—whether its reward or remembrance—then our motivations are misaligned.  Second, we can take comfort in the fact that God remembers, even if no one else does.  (Isaiah 49:15, “Even if a mother might forget her child—unlikely as that is—I will never forget you.)  Third, we can take comfort in the fact that God somehow incorporates our works into His own plans.  In Joseph’s case, if things hadn’t gotten unpleasant for Israel, they might have stayed in Egypt, so ‘Pharaoh forgetting Joseph’ moved God’s plan forward.  In the same way, the Lord takes our works up into His own plans, and, even if we have no idea about their lasting impact, we can trust that He’ll make something out of them.