Tony: Career vs. Legacy

-By Tony 

The year 2025 has been a very interesting year. At the beginning of the year, I was still out of the job since the layoff in August 2024. It had been almost 6 months. Each day, I tried to bring myself back up and send in applications, oftentimes with no response or interview. Things were pretty discouraging to say the least.

Fortunately, in late February, a recruiter reached out to me for a position and the company was willing to hire me after a few rounds of interviews. But the role paid less, and wasn’t as shiny on the resume as my last job. 

Right out of college, I landed a position at Deloitte, one of the “Big 4” accounting firms, serving almost 90% of Fortune 500 companies. At the time I thought, I really did it! But in just a year, I was laid off. So, after 6 discouraging months of job searching, all I could find was a role that I was not entirely interested in, nor very fond of.

I thought, Well, that’s it. I’ve shot my shot. My career will never come back from this. 

Rahab and Ruth

Since then, I have found encouragement in the stories of Rahab and Ruth. 

Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute from the City of Jericho who helped the Israelite spies to hide because she believed in the God of Israel. During the conquest of the City of Jericho, her family and household were spared from the destruction. God saves and redeems a least-expected foreigner because of her faith, while using her as a rescuing vessel for others. The writer of the story even elevates her status by mirroring her story to the Passover and the Flood. The red cord tied in the window mirrors the blood on the door post during Passover, and the Angel of Death mirrors the destroying force of Israel over the City of Jericho. Rahab’s house was the Ark in the flood of the Israelite army. This is a really cool story of God using the least-expected person and her small step of faith to accomplish great things. 

Then there’s Ruth, a Moabite widow who accompanies her widowed mother-in-law during the chaotic period when Israel was not only ruled by judges, but also experiencing a widespread famine. Ruth’s loyalty to her mother-in-law and her perseverance eventually wins the favor of her Redeemer, Boaz, and she was blessed with a family and a son. 

These stories are difficult to teach in Sunday School. The story of Rahab is largely overshadowed by the miraculous fall of the wall of Jericho, since God’s command over the treatment of the inhabitants of Jericho is a touchy and complicated subject to explain to children, let alone explaining Rahab’s day (night) job. 

Ruth’s story is even more confusing. Though her loyalty is admirable, and she is seemingly rewarded for persevering through tribulation and hardship, the point of her story is not entirely clear, nor did the author comment on God’s movement in her life. It is difficult to draw a clear biblical teaching point for kids or even adults.

So, why these stories? Why these women? What is the point? 

If we only read the stories of these two women’s lives, that would be an incomplete picture. The full meaning of their lives is not revealed until Matthew chapter 1, where we read the genealogy of Jesus Christ. 

Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

Obed the father of Jesse,

and Jesse the father of King David.

Matthew 1:5-6 NIV

Rahab’s and Ruth’s lives were woven into the genealogy of Christ, and their faithfulness ushered in the coming of the Messiah over 1000 years later. Neither Rahab nor Ruth saw their legacy come to fruition in their lifetime. They were long gone. 

Speaking of Legacy

Can we expect to see the full extent of our legacy in our lifetime? Can we know which decisions will have the most impact? Can we truly know just how far our small step of faith will carry us, or others? Based on Rahab’s and Ruth’s stories, I’d say, probably not. Yet, God was able to use the momentary faithfulness of these women to accomplish great things in their lives and the greatest miracle in history - God becoming man in the person of Jesus. 

If Rahab’s and Ruth’s stories are true, I don’t think my legacy will be fully realized in my lifetime either. Now the question is, what kind of legacy? What kind of legacy do I want to have? 

The Reflection on Legacy

I’ve been serving in our church’s kids ministry for two years now. I never considered myself particularly good with children, let alone teaching them. Truthfully, I did it to help out my wife who is the Children’s Director at our church, and we were running short on teachers. At first, teaching was awkward. I had no classroom experience, nor did I know how to manage a group of energetic 4-5 year olds. 

Slowly, I gained more experience and the children’s respect, and I became better at keeping their attention. I started to develop relationships with these children, and my love and compassion grew for them. I cherish the interactions and conversation we get to have at church. I look forward to the classroom time I get to have with them, and hearing them utter the truth of who Jesus is has become my greatest reward. 

Now, these children will grow up someday, and they will become their own people. They will make decisions over who they want to be and what they want to believe. Yet, if even a few of them commit their lives to follow Jesus and make disciples, and even if I contributed marginally to their conviction and commitment because I taught in Sunday School over the years, that will be the greatest win of my life. The impact of their faith on others–disciples making more disciples–will have a nuclear reaction in our world. The legacy of my life will not be quantifiable and it will not be fully realized until Jesus comes back again. 

Maybe our Bay Area culture does not really understand what true legacy is. Maybe our society has it all backwards. Maybe we seek glamor and accomplishment without understanding what greatness really is. I’m not saying I have all the answers. What I am saying is: I have started to question whether I have spent too much time, effort and worries on things that don’t really matter, things that will not contribute to my true legacy, and things that bear no weight in eternity.