When You’re the Best

“My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.”
― Winston S. Churchill

We’ve all witnessed it, a team of all-star players who cannot win a championship.

A famous rock band whose members can’t get along and within a few years they’ve flamed out and are mostly forgotten.

A perfect couple gets married and a few years later you learn they didn’t make together.

An amazing new company starts up with a mission to change the world and a decade later they are a bureaucratic nightmare where their employees just punch a time clock waiting until they can retire.

Nations do this, even civilizations.

It happens every day.

The most talented, the best qualified, the obvious choices…they just can’t get it done. 

Why?

Most often it is because they are focused more on themselves – their stats, privileges, profits, rights, security, and place in the pecking order – instead of remaining focused on the team winning. 

Here’s the danger…

You could be doing the same. 

You are the best at something somewhere.  And your “bestness” can end up sabotaging your ability to help your team win.    

When Jesus stated that the way to save your life was to lose it (Matthew 16:25) He was giving us one of the most important principles of life.  Actually He said, “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” 

For My sake…

That’s the key. 

For whose sake are you doing what you’re doing. 

Unless you are narcissist, and there are a lot of them out there, you know this. But true happiness and meaning does happen because you’re the best, it only happens when you bring your best to something greater than yourself.

And don’t miss this…

Created for eternity and made in the image of God, you will never find a cause or person big enough, noble enough, and meaningful enough in this finite and little world that will satisfy and fulfill you. 

By all means, save the planet, if you must. But don’t fool yourself. If that’s it, in the end, saving the planet or anything on it will only break your heart, for this tiny little blue marble that we call Earth, is far too small to satisfy.

You were meant for something, or better yet…Someone greater.    

The ONE THING for today: The other day I heard a fellow exclaim, “For Christ’s sake!”  He could not have been more right, though sadly I doubt he knew it.