Accomplishment

Accomplishment

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

SMILING, I PULLED MY OLD JOURNAL out of the box, pausing in my sorting and purging mission to read what nineteen-year-old me had to say. She was feisty in her dogged determination to be a lawyer, measuring decisions—and all of life—through the narrow focus of obtaining her law degree. Her journal was full of quotes from famous people about success and reaching goals, mantras based on proving worth.

I love that girl, despite her understanding of accomplishment being all mixed up and wrong. She didn’t know what she didn’t know, and as I reread her words wrestling with faith and God and how he might fit into her plans, my heart ached for her and the years she’d spend trying to find purpose and accomplishment the wrong ways before she got it right.

If life is about collecting degrees or whether we have an office with a door rather than a cubicle, then we are living too small and too narrow a life. If we measure accomplishment by the model year of the car in our driveway, or the size of our waist, then we are using the wrong standard.

God may send us to law school or put us in a corner office, but it’s never to rack up prestige points against colleagues and neighbors. Being accomplished in God’s eyes is far simpler—although certainly not easier. As women who love and follow Jesus, our command for living is clear: we are to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind, and love others as ourselves. These two commandments are the bedrock principles of our faith, the foundation upon which all else is built.

When we understand that Matthew 22:37-38 is our life’s mission, we measure accomplishment by God’s standard—by investing in people and relationships in our homes, our neighborhoods, our communities. We become world changers right where God has planted us, living ordinary, extraordinary lives.

Lord, may we trade the world’s definition of accomplishment for yours. Show us where we are mixing up the world’s standard with yours. Amen.

-Julie

One Good Step: What’s your definition of accomplishment? What might you need to change as you meditate on Matthew 22:37-38?