IN 1983 LORNE WHITEHEAD published an article in the American Journal of Physics about the domino chain reaction.1 You can picture it in your mind, can’t you? You knock over a domino, and it sets off a chain reaction that can knock down hundreds of dominoes in a matter of seconds. But the unique significance of Whitehead’s research was discovering that a domino is capable of knocking over a domino that is one-and-a-half times its size. So a two-inch domino can topple a three-inch domino. A three-inch domino can topple a four-and-a-half-inch domino. And a four-and-a-half-inch domino can topple…Well, you get the point.

By the time you get to the eighteenth domino, you could knock over the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Of course, it’s leaning so that’s not fair. The twenty-third domino could knock over the Eiffel Tower. And by the time you get to the twenty-eighth domino, you could take down the Empire State Building.

In the realm of mathematics, there are two types of progression: linear and exponential. Linear progression is two plus two equals four. Exponential progression is compound doubling. Four times four equals sixteen. If you take thirty linear steps, you’re ninety feet from where you started. But if you take thirty exponential steps, you’ve circled the earth twenty-six times!2

Faith isn’t linear.

Faith is exponential.

Every decision we make, every risk we take, has a chain reaction. And those chain reactions set off a thousand chain reactions we aren’t even aware of. The cumulative effect won’t be revealed until we reach the other side of the space-time continuum.

It takes very little effort to push over a tiny domino, only .024 joules of input energy. You can do it with your pinky finger. By the time you reach the thirteenth domino, the gravitational potential energy is two billion times greater than the energy it took to knock over that first domino.3 My point? Some of us want to start with the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. Good luck with that.

Benaiah didn’t start out chasing five-hundred-pound lions; he probably started out chasing a cute little kitten named Killer. He didn’t start out with two lionlike Moabites; he started out in the seventy-eight-pound weight class in middle school.

Don’t despise the day of small beginnings!

Your two-inch domino might seem insignificant, but extrapolated across space and time, it can make all the difference in the world. If you do little things like they’re big things, God will do big things like they’re little things.

All Aboard

On May 17, 1902, Christian Schmidgall boarded a ship in Antwerp, Belgium, and set sail for America. According to the ship’s manifest, he was sixteen years old, had ten dollars to his name, and didn’t speak a lick of English.

After landing on Ellis Island, Christian boarded a train bound for central Illinois, where he took odd jobs to make ends meet. After renting a farm for many years, he saved enough money to buy eighty acres of farmland in Minier, Illinois. That farm is still in our family. Christian planted oats and hay; his great-great-grandson produces beans and corn. But the seeds Christian planted are reaping a harvest to the third and fourth generations.

The domino effect of that one decision is mind boggling. If Christian Schmidgall had stayed in the tiny village of Walkensweiler, Germany, I doubt I would have met and married his great-granddaughter. But because he pursued his dream, I met my dream girl.

I’m not convinced that Christian Schmidgall was thinking of the third generation when he immigrated to America. He was only a teenager, after all. Plus, we tend to think of our decisions in present-tense terms. We think right here, right now. But God is the God of three generations—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

Forty years after immigrating, Christian Schmidgall put his faith in Jesus Christ. God became the God of Christian, and He eventually became the God of Edgar, the God of Bob, and the God of his great-granddaughter and my wife, Lora.

Every decision we make has a domino effect way beyond our ability to predict or control. We can’t predict when or where or how, but our seeds of faith will reap a harvest somehow, someway, someday. And it’s often when and where we least expect it.

Benaiah didn’t know he was updating and upgrading his LinkedIn profile when he took down two of Moab’s mightiest warriors. He didn’t know that chasing a lion into a pit on a snowy day was a networking event, earning him entrée to David’s inner circle. That wasn’t his motivation, but it was God’s ulterior motive. Whether you know it or not, God is building your résumé.

Can’t you picture David flipping through résumés?

Law enforcement major, University of Jerusalem.

Internship, palace guard.

Driver, Brinks Armored Chariots.

David yawns.

Killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! When can you start? I bet David didn’t even check references.

So David hired Benaiah, but he wasn’t just employing a bodyguard. Without even knowing it, David was grooming his son’s commander in chief.

Far Off

We think that what God does for us is for us, but it’s never just for us. It’s always for the third and fourth generations. We think right here, right now, but God is thinking nations and generations.

Matt Geppert is a lion chaser, the son of lion chasers. Matt recently assumed leadership of SEAPC, the South East Asia Prayer Center, which his parents founded in 1991. Eight years ago we made a financial investment in SEAPC, but I hadn’t given it much thought until Matt e-mailed me an update.

The work NCC supported eight years ago, when I first wrote to you about Tibet and Cambodia, has exploded. Today, we are the first international organization to be certified by the government of China to train trainers in autism, reaching 15 million homes with a government certified spiritual approach to an unanswered disease. This spring we have expanded from 8 to 488 public schools, from 8,000 to 126,000 students who are learning a Christ-based curriculum in the province of Banteay Meanchey.

You have no idea where Banteay Meanchey even is, do you? And neither do I. But we planted a seed eight years ago that is bearing fruit in a remote province halfway around the world.

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off.4

What’s true of the promise in Acts 2:39 is true of every promise in Scripture. There is no statute of limitations—chronological or geographical. The promise is for you, but it’s not just for you. It’s for the second generation—“your children.” It’s for nations and generations—“all who are far off.”

Chronologically, we’re two thousand years removed from the Day of Pentecost. But there is no expiration date on God’s promises. Geographically, Washington, DC, is 5,914 miles from the place where the apostle Peter proclaimed this promise. That’s far off, but it’s not beyond the reach of God’s providence.

Second-Generation Influence

Thirty years ago my father-in-law officiated at the wedding of Kent and Karen Ingle. Karen’s father, Glenn Kraiss, was a longstanding board member at Calvary Church, the church where my father-in-law served as pastor. Three decades later I have the joy and privilege of serving on the board of Southeastern University, where Kent serves as president. My daughter, Summer, is a student at SEU. The seeds that Summer’s grandfather sowed thirty years ago are still bearing fruit today. He won’t be there on her graduation day, but make no mistake about it. His influence opened the door.

Everywhere I go I hear stories about how my father-in-law influenced people’s lives. During my last book tour, I was speaking at Allison Park Church in Pittsburgh. The young pastor who picked me up is a fellow graduate of Central Bible College. Not far into our conversation, we discovered that we were from neighboring towns, Naperville and Aurora. I asked him if he’d ever heard of my father-in-law, Bob Schmidgall. He said, “I got the Bob Schmidgall scholarship my senior year at CBC!”

If he hadn’t been driving, I would have given him a man hug. Nearly two decades after my father-in-law’s death, his seeds of faith are still multiplying. A pastor in Pittsburgh is one of his countless downlines.

Even when you feel as if you aren’t making a difference, God might be using you in ways you aren’t aware of. And it’s not the immediate impact that matters most; it’s the exponential impact, to the third and fourth generations.

An inheritance is what you leave for someone.

A legacy is what you leave in someone.

Go ahead and leave an inheritance, but, more important, leave a legacy. Legacy is the influence your dream has on others even after you die. For some it’s short lived. For others, like my father-in-law, influence compounds interest. In fact, they may have more influence in death than they did in life.

Legacy isn’t measured by what you accomplish during your life span. Legacy is measured by the lives that are affected by your life long after you are gone.

When King David died, his kingdom was in jeopardy. There had been several coups d’état during his forty-year reign, and there were several more when Solomon assumed the throne. The first threat was posed by Solomon’s older brother Adonijah. A second threat was posed by a Benedict Arnold named Joab. In both instances, it was Benaiah that King Solomon commissioned to take care of it.

Benaiah was the linchpin between two generations, two kingdoms.

It was Benaiah’s bravery that opened the door of opportunity to become King David’s bodyguard. But it was loyalty that opened the door to his inner circle. I can’t predict what will earn you the promotion you want, but it won’t happen without selfless loyalty. If you want it for the wrong reasons, you’re not ready. Until you can selflessly invest yourself in someone else’s dream, you’re not ready for your own.

Downlines

Tim Scott is the first African American in US history to be elected to both the House of Representatives and the Senate. As a single parent, Tim’s mom worked sixteen-hour days just to put food on the table. Too many people growing up in poverty believe their dreams are unattainable and resign themselves to that notion. But for Tim, poverty only strengthened his resolve to both reach his dreams and work to ensure that others do as well.

The genesis of his dream was an eighth grade teacher who spotted political potential and said, “You ought to think about student council.” Those seven words changed the trajectory of his life. Never underestimate the power of one well-timed, well-phrased word of encouragement. One sentence can alter someone else’s destiny!

I recently met Senator Scott backstage at the Catalyst Next Conference in Washington, DC. During an unplugged interview, the senator said, “I’m a big believer in writing down vision.” That’s precisely what he did as a nineteen-year-old. Tim’s mentor, a Chick-fil-A operator named John Moniz, had a dream of positively influencing one million people. One of those one million was a teenage kid who could only afford fries. John gave Tim free sandwiches and a steady diet of godly wisdom. When John died of a heart attack at thirty-eight, Tim adopted John’s dream and one-upped it. He then wrote down that second-generation dream: to positively affect the lives of one billion people.

One billion people? That’s a five-hundred-pound lion! Especially for a kid who failed English and Spanish. “That doesn’t make you bilingual,” Tim says in self-deprecating fashion. “It makes you bi-ignorant.” But against all odds, Tim is now making decisions that directly affect the lives of 319 million Americans. And those decisions indirectly affect billions around the globe.

In our cultural narrative, Senator Scott is the hero of the story. But Tim would argue that the true hero is an eighth-grade teacher and a Chick-fil-A operator who saw his potential. They are the bylines that helped Tim Scott make headlines. And that’s true of Benaiah and his band of brothers.

Every David needs a Benaiah.

Every Tim Scott needs a John Moniz.

And someone needs you!

I’m eternally indebted to the people who have leveraged me—my parents, professors, coaches, mentors, and pastors. Most of their names you would not know—Bob Rhoden, Gordon Anderson, Kirk Hanson, Jac Perrin, Opal Reddin, St. Clair Mitchell, John Green, Michael Smith, Robert Smiley, Dick Foth, Jack Hayford.

Some of my uplines intersected my life for only a few seconds, like a missionary named Michael Smith, who spoke a prophetic word over my life when I was nineteen years old. He wouldn’t even remember that moment, but I’ve never forgotten it. The same is true of Opal Reddin, Jac Perrin, and Gordon Anderson. It was a sequence of conversations with each of them at a critical juncture in my journey that helped me resolve a theological conundrum. Then there is Dick Foth, who has been a spiritual father to me for two decades. The only way I can repay the debt I owe each of them is by doing for others what they have done for me.

Your legacy isn’t your dream. Your legacy is leveraging the dreams of those who come after you. Your legacy is your downlines—those you parent, mentor, coach, and disciple. You may not influence a million people, but who knows? You may influence one person who influences a billion people.

The Measuring Stick

One of the greatest miracles in the Bible is Elijah’s victory over the five hundred prophets of Baal. Mount Carmel was the high point of his prophetic career, but the turning point was a subtle shift in focus that happened during a season of depression. The tectonic plates shifted when God told Elijah to anoint a successor: “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Also you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place.”5

Whom are you anointing?

Whom are you setting up for success?

Who’s your Hazael, your Jehu, your Elisha?

The true measure of Elijah’s success wasn’t the fourteen miracles he performed. It was the twenty-eight miracles that Elisha performed after him. Simply put, success is succession. That’s how our dreams outlive us. They live on in the second-generation dreams that we inspire. And it’s no coincidence that Elisha performed twice as many miracles. God had given him a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.

After the death of her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor battled loneliness. In a brilliant biography about Eleanor Roosevelt, No Ordinary Time, Doris Kearns Goodwin noted that a verse of poetry given to Eleanor by a friend “inspired her to make the rest of her life worthy of her husband’s memory.”

One poetic verse was her constant source of encouragement:

They are not dead who live in lives they leave behind. In those whom they have blessed they live a life again.6

My father-in-law died of a heart attack on January 6, 1998, but his dream is still leveraging mine. He planted Calvary Church in Naperville, Illinois, and pastored it for thirty-one years. It’s his example that inspired my dream of pastoring one church for life. His heart for missions inspired us to be a missional church. The mission trips we take and the money we give to missions are a derivative of his dream—a mission within a mission.

When I stood at the foot of his casket on the day he died, I asked God for a double portion of his anointing. I wasn’t even sure what I was asking for, but this I know for sure: his dream did not die when he did. His dream lives on in me, through me. His dream continues to leverage my life in big ways, in small ways, in strange and mysterious ways. And I want to do the same for the next generation.