On a Significant Life
I wish for you something more than success in life. I wish you significance.
Aim higher than success; seek significance. Success tends to be measured in opponents conquered and things accumulated. Significance is measured in the difference made. Success is always at risk. Significance endures.
The first and most fundamental step on the path toward significance is simple. It is also ancient. It predates any American business guru’s book on how to be successful. It predates Machiavelli’s The Prince. It comes before anything Luther, Calvin, Augustine or Paul wrote.
We find the most crucial principle for a significant life on the lips of John the Baptist. John, of whom Jesus said no one born of woman was greater than he, said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
That’s the best life, work and leadership lesson to be had. It’s the first advice my first mentor gave me. The successful, or better, the significant Kingdom leader wants Jesus to become bigger and bigger, more and more. This rings true regardless your vocation: butcher, baker, candlestick maker.
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Easy to say; hard to do.
We live in a time of the expansive ego. We live in a time when people celebrate pride as a virtue even though previous generations thought it a vice. We are taught to be proud of this, that and the other thing. We live in a time when spiking the ball in the end zone, dropping the mic or doing a donut at Daytona serves as justified chest pumping.
This is not the way of the Kingdom. Humility, gentleness and kindness characterize the Kingdom. We do not seek to bring attention to self. We want people to see Jesus. More and more of him! He is the Savior. He is the true God. He is the Hope.
For you to be an effective leader you must learn how to tame your ego and turn the attention to Jesus. This will be hard because of two things. First, you have many good gifts and abilities. People are going to recognize and affirm your accomplishments. Second, many of your contemporaries will gladly soak up any spotlight you give up. If you don’t snatch the glory, they might.
Proverbs 27:21 reads, “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise.” The real mark of a person’s character is what that person does with the praise received.
What will you do with the praise, adulation, and acclamation you receive at work, at home, at church?
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
There are two wonderful, and related, Bible passages that can serve to keep a person’s ego in check. Always remember Balaam, or better, his donkey. When your ego starts to get out of check, when you start to increase instead of Jesus, remember that you are only a vessel. If God tires of using you, he can find any old donkey and accomplish as much through it as he can through you. (Numbers 22:21-39)
Remember the other donkey too, the Palm Sunday donkey. Jesus sent his disciples into the village to secure that donkey with the words, “The Lord has need of it.” The thing that was special that day about the donkey was not the donkey, but the Christ he carried. That’s you, my fellow Christian, and me. We could just as easily be donkeys carrying Christ to people. It is not about us. It is about Jesus.
This is not to denigrate the encouragement you will receive. I had a professor who once said a good compliment would keep him encouraged for a month. Hopefully you do indeed hear compliments and encouragements in your life. We need them! Life is hard! Just make sure you do not let any encouragement elevate you above Jesus.
Write it down. Say it often. Burn this mark of significance into your heart. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
One more note. You see the word “sign” in significance? A life of significance serves as a sign that points to Jesus.