The Licking Legacy…or curse…

Hold on to your hats, I’m about to get REEEALLL vulnerable.

It was a normal Tuesday night, my sophomore year of college at Louisiana Tech. Every Tuesday night we had an AMMMAAAZZZIINNGGG worship service on campus called Common Ground. Over 500 students would gather each week to worship together and study the word.

After service that night a group of friends and I were standing near the stage chatting when a guy I had never met walked up. Some of the people chatting knew him, but I had never seen him before.

What happened next I will carry with me to the grave…the shame of it…

I stuck my hand out and said “Hi, I’m Cassie…” as he shook my hand the electricity went out in the room. It went pitch black.

In that darkness I had this thought process…. and it happened in .000024 seconds:

Internal dialogue: What if I licked his hand right now? Oh my word I’m gonna lick his hand….oh my Lord I just licked his hand.”

That’s right folks, as we stood there in the few seconds that the lights were out, I pulled his hand to my face and licked it from wrist to finger tip….

Ok…take deep breaths…don’t judge me…don’t close my blog and report me to the police.

I am WELL aware of the deep dark levels of crazy that I just revealed.

The lights came on, and that poor gentleman (who I hadn’t even caught the name of) was wiping his hand on his jeans, looking at me with scared eyes and a huge fake smile. I think he was trying to make me feel better.

“I’m an animal!!!” I exclaimed…. adding even more crazy to the recipe. Who yells that??? It was a train wreck.

My friend Amy looked at me and said, “Cass, did you just lick him.” “I did…I did.” I answered. The weight of what had happened sunk in to my groups of friends who began hysterically laughing.

I began to profusely apologize and he responded, “No, it’s ok really, no worries….it was nice to meet you.” And he turned on his heels and basically ran in the opposite direction.

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The night before my precious Congolese princess started preschool we were sitting in her room chatting about what the next day was going to look like. She was so excited about starting school and wearing a uniform and meeting new people. She asked me questions like, “Mom, do you think we will do workouts at school…” (she does what she calls “workouts” with me while I flail around my living room to a workout DVD) We were just having the best little conversation about the exciting new reality of school.

I asked her excitedly, “What are you going to do on your first day of school???”

She thought for a second, and a wide face sized grin spread across her face….she put her hands on my face, leaned in and said:

“LICK PEOPLE!!!!”

Oh my word. I had a flashback to that fateful night when I licked a man’s hand from wrist to fingertip. Did she know that story?? Of course not….she’s 2.

I was flooded with shame and embarrassment…and didn’t know what to say.

How hypocritical would I be to say “You can’t lick people…” when I know good and well I have done the same.

I looked back at her and said, “Trust me Liv, you don’t want to do that.”

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We are all passing something down.  No matter if we are parents, grandparents, teenagers or young adults….we are leaving behind us a legacy.

Our heritage is not just the people in our past or the members of our family prior to us… it’s the mindsets, heart attitudes, sins, behaviors and thoughts about life that we pick up…that we inherit.

In the busy world we live in it’s easy to forget that our daily lives are a part of the legacy we are leaving, not just for our children, but spiritually the legacy we are leaving for the generation behind us.

Here’s the deal, the next generation learns from the one before it.  That’s how our world works.  Products get popular because we say they are popular. {Tweet This} Culture is full of things we claim to be against, but to some degree our choices are dictating that culture.

Our children will inherit what we leave for them…not just physically, but spiritually.

So…that’s a lot of pressure…but it’s also an AMAZING GIFT that God gives us…an opportunity to pass on His heart to our children, the chance to change a culture….impact a community and see that because of our choices people met Him, or people know Him better.

It makes me think of one of the coolest women in scripture: Rahab.  Her story is so stinking amazing if you know the ins and outs of it.  You probably know, but Rahab was known in Jericho as the town prostitute.  She had quite a reputation…everyone knew her… they didn’t really know her…but they knew what she did.  Not only was she a “workin girl” she was also a Canaanite, not included as a child of God, not an Israelite.  (these are important details to remember)

So we know the story…. two spies were sent into Jericho to get the lay of the land for Joshua…they wanted to see what they were up against when they went to take the city by force.  They “happened” upon the home of Rahab (don’t give them a bad rap for that…they were led to her home) Long story made short, Rahab hides the spies from the King so that they are not captured.

She says to them (I’m paraphrasing):

“We have heard about your God…how he split the red sea and you guys just walked through on dry ground…”

“When we heard that we were terrified…Your God is the only true God, who rules heaven and earth.”

This was a massive declaration for Rahab to make.  She did not know this God.  She worshipped many gods and lived in a culture that did the same.  This was not a small proclamation…this was not like being raised in the church and at VBS slipping your hand up and walking the aisle.  This woman made an EPIC and LIFE CHANGING proclamation of belief…straight up faith in the God she had only heard of never experienced.

Rahab lowers the spies out of her window The story goes on that Rahab, being super wise, tells the spies…I hid you now I want you to do something for me. (I scratched your back now you scratch mine)  She asked the two spies to spare her and her family when Jericho was taken by the Israelites.  She pled for the life of her family and the generations after her.  She had great faith in God, had taken action and been obedient, would that God save her?

The spies told her to tie a red rope in her window so that when the city was taken they would know where her family was and they would protect them.

And they left…. it was all up to Rahab and her faith and belief in a God she had never met.

I can imagine her hanging that red rope, feeling that her family’s life depended on that scarlet thread. (scarlet for a reason…Jesus blood…just sayin)

The battle of Jericho begins.  The Israelites, taking their war strategy straight from the mouth of God, march around the walls like a bunch of crazies, yell a bunch, blow horns and the “walls came tumblin’ down.”   Except for one chunk of the outer wall….Rahab’s home.

“But Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all who belonged to her,
Joshua saved alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day,
because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.”
Joshua 6:25

Did you catch that one phrase… “and she has lived in Israel to this day”… do you know what that means?

That means that a Canaanite prostitute, having no right to the family tree of the coming Messiah, was grafted in… made a part of Israel…a child of God…and every generation of hers after was a part of the family of God.

Just like Rahab, we are broken, messed up people with no right to be included in the family of God.  But by his grace and mercy we have been grafted in.

And just like Rahab, we are given choices, many of them, to make.  Are we thinking about what our choices are doing?  What legacy are our decisions leaving for people who come after us?

Today, this second, God is giving you the chance to choose HIM.  Radically choose Him.  Live for Him, breathe for Him, be desperate for Him.  Choose today to not get wrapped up in the mundane, in our culture, in the endless lists of to dos and the standards set for us by the world we live in.

If you are a mom, don’t fall for the trap that you have to be tired and stressed and frazzled all the time…leave a better legacy than that.  If you are in corporate America, don’t be like everyone else…choose to be radically different and inject Jesus into every business deal you do.

If racism is in your family, let it end with you.  If addiction is the legacy of your family, let it end with you.  No more apathy, no more secrets.  Love people who don’t look like you.  Embrace a broken world….take risks and trust Jesus.

“Love God, your God, with your whole heart:
love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder;
Inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.”
Deut. 6:5-9

{Tweet This}We are all leaving something behind…in every conversation, every relationship, in our marraiges, in our children’s lives and in broken people.  May it be UNDENIABLY about Jesus…may we saturate our worlds with HIS love, grace, mercy and the fruits of His spirit.

My daughter got through the first day of school with no licking incidents…. a generational curse broken….I will not leave a licking legacy.