John Hargrove Seeking Truth and Reality

There comes a point in life when you begin looking backward differently.

The accomplishments still matter. The work mattered. The things built, repaired, designed, led, and carried mattered. But increasingly, I find myself remembering something else.

People.

A father making breakfast on a foggy morning. A son laughing with his dad in the middle of an ordinary day. Someone sitting beside you when life falls apart. A conversation. A kindness. A person who simply stayed.

These are the echoes that remain.

Colossians 3 gives me a framework for understanding what God may be doing with all of this. Paul tells us to set our minds on things above, to put away anger, bitterness and the old ways of living, and instead to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Then he says something even harder: forgive as the Lord forgave you.

And above everything else, put on love.

I have spent much of my life solving problems. That is what engineers do. Find the failure. Understand the system. Develop the solution. Restore operation.

But life has taught me that some things cannot be engineered back together.

I cannot change another person’s heart. I cannot repair every broken relationship. I cannot protect everyone I love. I cannot guarantee tomorrow. There are losses that cannot be reversed and questions that may never receive satisfactory answers.

Jesus is the Savior. I am not.

That realization changes Christian action for me.

Serving Christ does not mean fixing everything. Sometimes it means taking up the towel and serving the person standing in front of me.

Listening.

Forgiving.

Encouraging.

Showing up.

Giving away what God has taught me.

Colossians 3:17 says, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

That includes the large assignments, but I believe it especially includes the ordinary ones.

Perhaps that is where our greatest legacy is actually being written.

Someday the things we built will become obsolete. Positions will belong to someone else. Organizations will change. Most accomplishments will eventually become a line in somebody’s records.

But love leaves echoes.

So my prayer for the remaining journey is becoming simpler:

Lord, take my heart, my mind, my hands, my experiences, my wounds, my work, my relationships and whatever years remain. Clothe me with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love.

Let Your peace rule in me.

Let Your Word dwell richly within me.

And when the echoes of my life remain in the lives of others, may they point beyond me to Jesus.

Not me, but Christ.

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