Few of us make headlines on a national or international scale; but in our heart of hearts most of us, like Blair, would love to be remembered for something. The PM would prefer, no doubt, to be hailed as the man who attacked global poverty, not Iraq. And time will tell whether he will be. But should he worry about whether he’ll be remembered for the right things?
For that matter, should any of us worry about how we’ll be judged? After all, if we focus too intensely now on how others will assess our legacy one day, we risk making compromises as we try to meet other people’s expectations.
Of course, believers would say that we need to live up to a different set of standards altogether. Yet the Bible can defy even our ‘Christian’ expectations at times. It’s safe to say that Samson, for example, would not have made a model Christian. He visited prostitutes, slept with the enemy and gave away his secrets – and in bringing the house down on both his foes and himself, scripture records that he killed more people in death than he did in life. Quite an epitaph!
Even so, the writer of Hebrews includes him in the list of those who are commended for their faith. F F Bruce thinks this is because ‘Judges portrays him as one who was deeply conscious of the invisible God, and of his own call to be an instrument in God’s hands against the enemy.’
To be fair, Blair, too, seems to be conscious of the invisible God. Last year, he famously told the interviewer Michael Parkinson: ‘If you have faith … you realise that judgement is made by other people ... and ... God as well.’
I’m glad that ultimately I won’t have to rely on other people for a fair appraisal of my life. No one will remember me in a hundred years’ time except God. Which makes me wonder: perhaps we shouldn’t ask how we’d like to be remembered, but why.
Brian Draper
Reproduced with permission: © The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity
