What if life was never about how many? Like – I’m sitting here thinking to myself – what if life has NEVER been about how many, and that’s what is messing up so many of us. What’s messing us up is this idea that life is about how many: people like you, people pay attention to you, wins, awards, milestones – you get the point. I’m gonna try and make this point as clear as possible. I haven’t written in a while so please bear with me.
Have you ever felt super-embarrassed even though you were the only person that knew you failed? Embarrassment is such a strong feeling. Do you know that people have killed themselves because of the embarrassment they felt, even though no one else was in the room? It’s a strong emotion I tell you – this feeling can stop life, and it can also make you:
- Give up on your dreams
- Deny the path God has called you to walk on
- Distance yourself from the people that genuinely love you
- Resent getting out of bed and showing your face in public
- Become anxious about every single unknown detail of your future
- Resent doing the things that you once loved
Do you understand my point? It’s a very strong feeling – embarrassment. Honestly, sometimes the problem isn’t that we fear failure, it’s that we fear embarrassment. We fear what we’ll become to both others and ourselves if we are to be embarrassed again. So, what we do next is not-do at all.
I have this miniature basketball hoop hooked on the back of my bedroom door. It was gifted to me by my friend, David. I shoot these miniature balls into the hoop – day in, day out. It’s what I do during my free time: when a podcast video is rendering, when I’m on the phone, and before I do just about anything that requires me to walk past that hoop. I shoot at it a lot, and to be honest, if I airball a shot, I indeed feel embarrassed – even though it’s only me in the room. There are times when I’m capable of missing shots several times in a row – all the same way too, short. In these times I indeed feel embarrassed. There was one time when I thought to myself (this was probably the Holy Spirit) and I said, ‘What if life was never about how many?’ In this case, it was how many shots I could make. ‘What if the measure of the man I knew I wanted to be wasn’t based on how many times I made a shot, and therefore, how many shots I missed was nothing to be embarrassed about. Instead, what mattered was if I had enough in me to continue to shoot even though I just missed 10 in a row.
I know – that was deep for what seemed like no reason but let’s take it a little deeper and unpack this parable (if you will, lol). What if at the end of our lives we realize that the scoreboard was never keeping track of how many wins we got, but instead, how many times we were able to get back up and still play after being embarrassed, again and again, and again and again and again and again and again and again and again?
You see, if I could be very honest with you I have been so embarrassed with myself more times than I could count in my lifetime. I can proudly say that I’ve been able to get back up and keep going time after time. But sometimes I ask myself, ‘how long could I keep this up? How many more times can I bear the embarrassment?’ Sometimes I get mad with God and ask Him if He’s there. Because if He is there, haven’t I suffered enough? Haven’t I endured enough embarrassment? Can I win now? Can you make this game bend to my will finally? I’m shooting…I’m trying…I’m working, but the shots aren’t going in…my attempts are failing…my work seems to yield no results (or at least not the results I know I’m capable of obtaining one day). If this is all there is to this game, then should I just quit?
O, how wonderful and relieving quitting sounds sometimes. There are so many levels to what ‘quitting’ might mean to different people. For some, it could mean quitting a task and finding something else. For others, it could mean quitting life. Personally, for me, it seems that whenever I continue to fail, and not see the results over and over again, I don’t quit, but what I do end up doing is become lazy and lackluster. Can you relate? You start to care less about the task altogether, and feel like any energy you input into this task is wasted energy. That’s the response I typically choose. When all of your shots don’t go in, and all of your hard work leads to embarrassment once again, what do you do?
But, what if life was never about how many? And instead, it was about getting back up again, and going again. Do you know what that’s called? Do you know what it’s called when someone chooses not to quit, but instead gets back up and goes again? Do you know what it’s called when someone isn’t discouraged by the losses and keeps on trying their best even when it looks like their best will never be enough? Do you know what it’s called when the embarrassment is weighing down super heavy on you, but you shake the attention off yourself and place it on the task at hand is accomplished?
That’s called faithfulness.
In Matthew 25, Jesus gives a parable to the people, where he likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a master who leaves his servants for some time. Before he leaves, he calls his servants and gives each of them some money that he expected them to multiply once he got back. Two out of 3 of his servants did just that – one traded his master’s value from 5 talents to 10 and the other from 2 talents to 4. And you wanna know what the master said to these obedient servants? He said, ‘ Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.’ He said it, my good and FAITHFUL servant. And he said the same thing to both of the servants. One made him more money than the other one did, but they got the same expression of gratitude – being deemed faithful and entering into the joy of the Lord. And that’s when it hit me. He didn’t thank one servant more than the other, nor did he even acknowledge that they produced different results – he was just happy because they were….faithful.
I could only imagine how many times these servants may have failed before they got to double their talents. But the bottom line was that they weren’t rewarded or cast down because of their wins or losses, but were rewarded because of their faithfulness. So this is where I ask you this question again…what if life was never about how many? This entire time while we were so depressed and embarrassed for losing again and again and again, the thing that God was most concerned with was whether we got back up and got back in line AGAIN. What if we finally took the time to acknowledge and understand what it means to continue to give something our all – no matter a win or loss, no matter if it leads to praise or embarrassment – we just give it our all again and again and again and again and again until God says ‘Alright that’s enough kid.’
Do you think you could do that? Do you think you could bear being embarrassed again for the sake of remaining faithful? The embarrassment is scary and it hurts so bad, but if I told you that you had nothing to be embarrassed about would it loosen you up and help you get back up again? Because one thing you must know is this…
When we are faithful to what God has called us to do, be, etc., fruit shall be bore at the appointed time. It might not be at the time you want it, but it will bear fruit indeed. Your talents will multiply. And when it does, you’ll know that it’s because God made it happen when He wanted it to happen. You planted and you watered, and He gave the increase when He knew it was the time (1 Corinthians 3:6). Understand this:
Life has never been about how many.
It’s been about faithfulness.
That’s what this life is all about. Don’t be embarrassed.
