What You Leave Behind

If there's one thing we're learning during this pandemic it's washing our hands more often due to being acutely aware of the physical things we touch. With the discovery of DNA & TV shows like the various CSI series that taught us we leave our DNA everywhere on everything we can pretty much track where we actually leave our DNA:

- on our pillows & sheets

- on the alarm clock/smartphone

- on the toilet handle

- on the shower handle

- on the towels

- on the coffeepot handle

- on the fridge handle

- on the plates, cups & glasses

- on our clothes

- on the keys to our cars & businesses

- on the car door handle

- on the steering wheel

- on the stick shift

- on the atm card & atm

- on the handles of our building office

- on our desks

- on our pcs & laptops & printers

- on our musical instruments

- on our lawn mowers & snowblowers

- on our mailbox flags & doors

- on the grocery carts

- on the cans, boxes & bags of groceries

You get the idea: we leave traces of our physical DNA on every single thing we touch & come in contact with, period. I then started thinking, “What about our spiritual DNA? What kind of spiritual DNA are we leaving behind in everything & everyone we come into contact with?” It really got me thinking… you know how some people can walk into (or out of) a room & the atmosphere changes? Sometimes it changes for the better, other times it changes for the worse but they're leaving something behind. Other people come into your life for a season & when they're gone you've felt their impact. 

Sometimes a business will fold in a community & when it's gone, the community feels it, they feel the impact it's DNA had on them. Sometimes a church/fellowship/ministry will close & the community may or may not feel the DNA that was left behind (depending on the level of community involvement that particular church/fellowship/ministry had developed in the community). 

Recently I've become much more aware of how I'm impacting people: encouragement or discouragement… clarity or confusion… peace or unrest… hope or hopelessness… law or grace… freedom or bondage…  & it's sobering to realize what all my spiritual DNA leaves behind…

As a Christian, as a follower of Christ, how am I leaving His DNA on everything & in everyone, that I touch? How are we, as Christians & followers of Christ, leaving Kingdom DNA all over our realms of influence?

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved on stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” - Pericles