Read Time: 10 minutes

by AJ Canterbury

Ever since elementary school, joining the Garden Spot Performing Arts (GSPA) stood as my greatest ambition once I entered high school. The theater production was performing a musical and selected two students from each neighboring primary school, and my best friend, Sarah, and I were nominated from ours. The Broadway-like actors, the elaborate set designs, and the bright stage lights mesmerized me, and I was bit hard by the theater bug, as they say.

GSPA carried an elite and celebrated status in the community, so I hurried to audition for the production of “Rebel Without A Cause” during my freshman year. The nerves crowded together in my stomach as I stepped in front of the long table anchored by the stern faces of the student directors, who looked impossible to impress. At the center of the table, sat the director/founder of GSPA, Mr. Deen, the legendary figure himself. He profoundly calmed me with his exuberant grin while belting out the words to the latest Michael Jackson hit. 

I made the cast, not as the misunderstood lead but as a silent extra. I practically held the cast together with my impersonation of a high school student. The lackluster role did not bother me in the slightest for I got to be a part of the theater magic and soak up the wisdom and energy of Mr. Deen.

The Influence of Stan Deen

During a long night at rehearsal, I waited in the green room listening to the other cast members share their stories about our community-celebrity, Mr. Deen. With reverent whispers, the older members told of a troubled student, in danger of going to jail, who Mr. Deen brought into his home, helped him graduate, and practically adopted him. His generosity and love for the students around him was clearly not a façade. He demonstrated a commitment to embrace the people and moments appointed to him, even if it meant stepping into someone’s dark.

I valued every interaction with him. In those early days of GSPA, I encountered his generosity and his genuine interest in my life. When he asked me a question he gave undivided attention, waiting for my answer.

My back surgery to correct my scoliosis was scheduled the week after “Rebel Without A Cause” ended. Before the final show, Mr. Deen called me to the front of our cast and crew meeting, presented me with a card signed by everyone, and assured me that GSPA stood behind me as my family and would be waiting for my return. He led the assembly in a prayer over me. It was exactly what my anxious heart needed.

I continued to learn from Mr. Deen’s example in the proceeding productions and through my time in GSPA leadership. Even though he retired at the end of my sophomore year, my interactions with him are some of my strongest memories from my entire time in high school. I moved out of state and only connected again with Mr. Dean over Facebook.

Even in Texas, all those years later, the announcement of his death tore me from my current focus and returned me to the 15-year-old who had grown under the guidance of this teacher/director. His recorded memorial service held in the high school auditorium proved just how connected to the community Mr. Deen had been. I watched and listened to countless testimonies of stories that sounded just like mine, lives that Mr. Deen had left an indelible mark on.

After watching the film, “Brave The Dark”, the true story of Mr. Deen and Nate, the struggling student he brought into his home, I felt in the presence of that impactful man and grieved for him again. When the credits rolled with real pictures of Mr. Deen, I thought of the legacy I had witnessed in him and contemplated the legacy I wished to leave behind.

The Vanity Of Life Under The Sun

I have always wanted to live a life on mission, one that brings more good into this world than bad. I want to develop an idea, start a movement, or publish a story that leaves a lasting influence on generations. My life lasts only a bundle of decades so if I want it to matter. It seems right to focus on something that can extend far into the future.

Is my aspiration a Biblical one? To be sure my goal is to exalt Christ not myself, so is it worthwhile to focus on building a legacy that lasts?

The book of the Ecclesiastes in the Bible offers a glib look at finding any lasting satisfaction under the sun. King Solomon ventures on a social experiment, investigating what will bring him satisfaction in this life. He explores partying and feasting, accruing wealth, chasing sex, and even building beautiful things. He concludes that all earthly conquests are empty and futile if there is no eternity in mind.

Solomon observes the end result (death) of the wise and the fool are the same. The calculated man of wisdom achieves no advantage over the fool who lives frivolously, enjoying his existence to the fullest. Even if he works hard to accumulate wealth and build an industry for future generations, there is no guarantee those who come after will keep it going.

“I hated all my toil in which I toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity’  (Eccl 2:18-19). 

So, he determined, it was best to stop his hard work  “because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it” (Eccl 2:21). 

Ecclesiastes offers an honest look at the brevity and uncertainty of life, but it is not exactly the most encouraging of bedtime stories. The book sucks the winds out of legacy’s sails. Since Ecclesiastes observes life under the sun, I wondered how legacy changed in light of Christ’s cross.

Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be,
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.

C.T. Studd

 An Investment That Matters

Jesus echoes Solomon’s observation in his parable of the bigger barns. A man asked Jesus to serve as an arbitrator between him and his brother on dividing their inheritance. Jesus uses the man’s question to illustrate the difference between the world and God’s kingdom.

In the story, a man had amassed so much wealth to supply for his descendants and he decided to build bigger barns so he could sit back and admire all he had collected. “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” And then Jesus adds in this concluding statement. “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Lk 12:20-21). 

Jesus presents two different treasures: one who accumulates earthly fortunes you lose when this life ends, and one profitable for God’s kingdom and who increases his wealth in God while on earth. Unlike Ecclesiastes, Jesus’s statement speaks to the reality of life beyond then sun. His death and resurrection grant access to God’s eternal kingdom for all who trust in Jesus, and he calls those believers to invest in things that will survive forever.

The wealth we are to gather is not physical goods. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt 6:19-21).

The treasure, in the heart of the believer, is the work of Christ, the redemption and freedom he purchased. The gospel is the treasure in the field the man sold all he owned to gain (Matt 13:44).

Increasing my riches in God rests in the souls I help bring into his kingdom. Jesus called his disciples to go out into the field (world) and bring in the harvest (his people) (Jn 4:34-38). A life devoted to exalting his name and influencing the people of God to worship and follow his commandments is the life Christ calls his followers to be busy with.

I love the picture in Deuteronomy and how the father makes God the center of  the activities in his household: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut 6:6-7).

The passage speaks directly to the father, but the principle applies for whomever you lead or influence. Night and day, every moment, and every interaction is used to teach generations to love and honor the commandments of God. The leader helps others see him as true, present, and active, and shows them how to walk in absolute satisfaction with him.

Mr. Deen caught sight of this and joyfully pursued it. He invested in the next generations, calling them to action, and showing them how to live. 

I want this to be the objective of my life. Instead of focusing on what I can achieve or leave behind, my time would be best served influencing those entrusted to my circle to live for Christ. That lends to a legacy that matters and one guaranteed to have eternal significance.

In the comments, tell me how you can influence others to love and follow Jesus?

“Brave the Dark,” the film about Nate and Mr. Deen’s story, is available to stream through the Angel Studios app.

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