Live Successfully

My preacher asked the question this morning, “How do you measure a life?” (I apologize now for the RENT song I just made pop into your head…). I’m glad he brought up that question, because it’s one that my MESP friends and I seemed to discuss often. What makes a life “successful”?

I may have had a slight mental breakdown last week after realizing that the majority of my friends are at this time either looking into graduate schools or getting married. Me? I have no clue what I’m even doing tomorrow, let alone after I graduate next May. I have no plan (except my plan to not work at Old Navy for the rest of my life). I have many options in front of me, and while I understand how blessed I am to have these options, I’m overwhelmed by the idea that I have to make a decision in less than a year that could determine the rest of my life.

My friend Sharon is going to law school to be a social-justice lawyer. She’s one of those people I get excited about seeing five, ten, twenty years from now. She’s going to make a difference in this world. My friend Sarah is going to be a physical therapist—and an awesome one at that. She loves people and heals not only with her coveted massages but with her kind and encouraging spirit. She too is going to make a difference in the world.

I am not going to law school, and I’m not going to be a physical therapist. And while I mentioned that I don’t want to work in retail for the rest of my life, I wonder if my life would still be “successful” if I did nothing but fold clothes every day.

There's a picture frame I saw at Wal-mart that reads, “Life isn’t measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the number of moments that take your breath away.” My preacher made a new statement today. “Life isn’t measured by the number of breaths you take or even the number of moments that take your breath away, but by the number of breaths you breathe into the lives of others.”

I can remember a day in 8th grade when one of our guidance counselors came to class and gave us a lecture on “'The Haves’ versus ‘The Have Nots’”. He told us we needed to continue our education because our success one day would depend on how much money we made—money that could only come from a good job that would only come from making good grades. We were going to grow up and find ourselves in one of those two categories. We could “have” and be able to buy a new car every few years, or we would be a “have not” and have to drive the same car for up to ten years. This is what measured your success.

We all know that when you die, you die. And that it won’t really matter how much money you made or how well-known your name was or how pretty your house looked. Some might call that success, but in the scheme of eternity, I don’t believe those things matter to God. You may be a person like Sharon who plans on making “macro-level” differences in the world, taking on injustices and fighting the bullies of the world. You may be more like Sarah who will make an impact one person at a time as a physical therapist. I don’t think it’s their occupation that will make them successful, but the heart that they have fueling them—the heart of God.

No, I don’t know what I’ll be doing a year from now. But if I do have an example to follow:
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature a servant,
being made in human likeness.” –Philippians 2:5-8

I also have a promise:
“he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” –Philippians 1:6

Even if for now it’s just by providing customer service at a clothing store, I want to bless people. Then maybe one day, no matter where I end up or what I end up doing, I can say I lived a successful life.