When I was invited to speak to Loma Linda University Health’s Transformational Leadership Program about building a personal legacy, I told them they had the wrong person.
Few things have complicated my spiritual journey more than the pursuit of significance. What I once mistook for a divine calling often became twisted with ambition—the need to accomplish something important, be noticed, and leave a lasting mark. It became a tyranny.
In thirty years of learning to live in Father’s love, I’ve discovered that it is also a mask for personal emptiness. As I came to rest in his love, I watched this inner drive for significance fade away. I’m convinced that those who pursue legacy, seek to be significant, or seek popularity all come from a place of brokenness. I’ve seen it too often with politicians, authors, influencers, entrepreneurs, and anyone who tries to measure their worth at the expense of others.
When I explained that to the man inviting me, I told him I did not want to help wire another generation to chase significance as I had. To my surprise, he said that was exactly why they wanted me to come. So, on Wednesday, I sat down with a group of leaders in the health industry who wanted to hear my journey from the tyranny of seeking significance to the contentment of simply following Jesus.
I cannot remember a time when I did not want to be in the spotlight. But that hunger continually collided with the life Jesus was inviting me to live. Through much pain—disappointed expectations, betrayal, family deception, and opportunities he asked me to decline—he gradually loosened my need to be noticed. The more I found my identity in being the beloved son of a gracious Father, the more of his fullness I could see. That alone slowly unraveled my desire for significance and legacy. It has been one of God’s greatest freedoms to me.
I began to understand why he sought obscurity and how that opened wider doors to really help people know him. Freedom from recognition made room for love.
I told them about my lifelong desire to love one woman well—and how, four years ago, I thought I had utterly failed. Then the story turned. Loving Sara well meant walking with her through the pain and distortions of trauma while God healed something buried deep within her.
That journey reminded me that life moves at the speed of relationships. Healed and whole relationships are among the greatest treasures we are given.
The group responded with warmth and tenderness. They saw hope in the fact that God can be deeply present in life’s most painful places, bringing healing and freedom where we least expect it.
Together, we explored a better pursuit than notoriety: the wholehearted life Jesus offers. When we no longer need to use others to fill what is empty within us, we are free to live from fullness. Then creativity, calling, and passion can unfold without comparison or competition. Our lives can be marked by the kindness of serving rather than exploiting, the quiet faithfulness of caring for a spouse, coworker, neighbor, child, or friend.
Afterward, people described the conversation as inspiring and hopeful. One spoke of “loving without anger” as a healing power. Another said that no matter how deep the hurt, hope remains.
How different might our world become if we found our fullness in God and gave his love away freely, instead of being consumed with our own need to matter?
When people think of legacy, they usually imagine achievement, influence, and notoriety. Few think of a life shaped by love.
And yet, there may be no greater legacy to leave.
Wayne…you have just identified one of the deepest issues hiding in plain sight in the vast majority of the so-called church! There are myriad pastors and teachers and worship leaders who are literally addicted to the stage and to being seen on a regular basis as spiritual giants! The stage is a very heady place, and relatively few can truly handle it! It is indicative of the systemic, chronic merry-go-round that the modern church thinks is so necessary to not only have, but incessantly promotes. As leader after leader falls into sin and wreaks havoc in their respective congregations, we still don’t understand how that could have happened! The system is replete with the carnage and hurt lives that pursuing attention and recognition produces. In a way, the system sets up leaders to fail, and few ever want to talk about that dirty little secret. Keep talking, brother! Some of us are listening!
Thank you for sharing about this encounter with the Loma Linda folks!
To nakedly pursue one’s own ego thinking it to be call of God is the most deceptive of traps that the enemy uses. Humility would go a long way to thwart it.
This is pure gold Wayne! And your comment; “Humility would go a long way to thwart it,” Thank you!
Amen Vic !!
“This is pure gold Wayne” ❤️