It’s year-end; the New Year starts next week, on Tuesday. I know: your calendar has you confused. It says that the New Year begins in January; truth-be-told, the day after Labor Day is more of a starting line – for most of us – than the morning after “the holidays.” The question you have to answer before next week: are you ready to put it all on the line?

            In this life, lines are crucial. Headstones include them, just under your name: your starting line and finish line are carved in granite. The phrase “it’s all on the line” represents putting everything at risk for a goal, originating from gambling. “The problem with putting it all on the line is that it might not work out. The problem with not putting it all on the line is that it will never (ever) change things for the better. Not much of a choice, I think.” (Seth Godin)

            For people in my age cohort, legacy is bouncing around our consciousness like a golf ball fired into a handball court. Legacy is usually laser-focused on bloodline, and family is the only field of play.

            Bloodlines must be important: the first 16 verses of the New Testament link the 42 generational names from Abraham to Jesus. His bloodline was the start of his story, though not the end.

            Families are crucial; they must be: they have always been in the crosshairs of the Evil One, slated for death and destruction if he’s to prevail in his steal/kill/destroy strategies. Our souls long for idyllic and iconic family stories; too often, our experience comes up short of the Hallmark model.

            We live between those two lines on our headstones; in the space between birth and death, we are all tasked with recognizing our upline and, then, resourcing our downline.

            The internet era has made genealogical exploration possible. For a fee, apps can take what you already know about your family-of-origin and expose you to things that you wish you’d never heard about the great-great-greats who passed dysfunction down to you. Generational curses are not just the stuff of horror flicks: they are sometimes embedded in ways that need be understood and denounced.

            Too often, people come to their moment in their generational histories unprepared to reset the nature of their own present or their potential to write their story into the future. Living the moment – without regard to the upline past or the downline future – risks draining the vitality that could be eternally defined by the dash-between-the-dots on one’s tombstone.

            I’ve done enough family digging to know that I started with limited legacy power passed-down from my grands. My adult lifeline began without any past propulsion to launch my own story.

            But, Cheri and I have partnered to make a different story with our downline. Great kids; great grandkids; starting to meet the great-grands next year. Legacy won’t be determined posthumously by our wills and trusts: it will be realized or renounced by what we pour into those high-potential folks who are taking our place on the platform of history as they play-out their own role in God’s story.

            That’s great, but we were made for even more. God has placed us in His family with the power to impact and influence our human Bloodline as well as a highly prolific Kingdom Downline.

            Paul had no Paul Jr. to whom he could pass his tentmaking and missional assets, but he had a collection of sons who were in his Christmas photo. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus… to Timothy, my true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:1-2). “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ… to Titus, my true son in our common faith” (Titus 1:1-4). “I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains…” (Philemon 1:10). Paul was adopting young men into his (virtual) spiritual family as a legacy expression that would survive beyond his own finish line.

            Paul’s upline was Barnabas, his spiritual mentor; his downline included Timothy, Titus, Onesimus and countless more. His great, great, great et al family probably includes you and me!

            My upline included men like Loren Griset, Chuck Swindoll, Howard Hendricks and Bob Buford. My downline includes my kids, grandkids and who-knows-how-many-more. I know all of the genetic bloodline; I can name some of the spiritual downline. Perhaps you’re one of the people for whom I have had the opportunity to act as a spiritual mentor.

            We all have them: Uplines. Bloodlines. Downlines. Deadlines; then, we Flatline.

            My prayer for me, and for you: don’t stop working on your Bloodline and Downline until you hit your Deadline.

 — Bob Shank