I turned 45 this year. To someone who loves football, it feels like half-time. It started thinking about God’s work in my heart until now, and began to imagine what I want the rest of my life to look like, however long I have left.
I wondered if the Pareto principle applies to our impact in life and ministry. Does 80% of our impact come in the last 20% of our lives?
I imagined if building a life on the foundation of the gospel is like constructing a skyscraper. Could God’s work begin with the critical work of laying a firm foundation, which takes time? Does he then proceed to build the structure, level after level, at a blistering pace?
In his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot wrote, “I have measured my life in coffee spoons.”
It’s a line that implies the inevitable passing of time without anything meaningful to show for it. It’s not the life any of us want.
Mercifully, it’s not the life God wants for us either.
So, what is the best way to think about the rest of your life?
Firstly, age has little to do with it.
Half-time can come at any time. It’s never too late or too early to begin taking a measure of the meaning of your life. In fact, God urges that we start thinking about it as early as we can, before we turn into old men, filled with regret, waiting to die alone, measuring our lives in coffee spoons (Ecc. 12:1).
As in football, so it is in life. Anything can happen at any time. At a moment’s notice—with a mistake, a show of excellence, or a stroke of fortune—the game can turn on its head.
God can turn things around and put meaning in your life whenever he wants.
Secondly, it’s difficult to do simple things.
The pace and depth of impact is not a natural event. It’s a supernatural one.
“Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7).
So the secret to a stressful life is quite simple: focus on the outcome, not the process.
To focus on growth is to invite misery, anxiety, and all manner of unwise thinking.
But the secret to a calm, quiet, well-watered life is simpler still: focus on the process, not the outcome.
What we do every day builds up to what we become on the last day.
In a country that has never been more aspirational, here is an aspiration to consider: to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one (1 Thess. 4:11-12).
Thirdly, what you measure reveals what you treasure.
How do I want to take the measure of my life?
It’s simpler to recognise inadequate measures and unsatisfying treasures—the cash in the bank, the appointments in our calendars, the degrees on the wall, the count of our social media following, the kilograms on our scale, the numbers in the pews, the hours we spend at work, or the days we go on vacation.
What you measure is what you treasure. How are you measuring the impact of your life?
If I really want a life of meaning and purpose that glorifies God, what should I measure?
It’s not easy to take a serious measure of the impact of your life and ministry.
At a conference I attended recently, I saw something that grabbed my attention.
The trainer showed us Tim Keller’s simple way to measure the impact and meaning of our life and ministry.
- Is your spouse happy with your family life and spiritual health?
- Are around 15% to 25% of laypeople engaged in lay ministry?
- Are 40% to 50% of the congregation in small groups?
- Is the church growing 5% to 7% a year, with 15% to 20% of that growth consisting of new believers?
- Are church members growing in maturity and holiness? Is there a way to evaluate this?
I love these questions.
Though they are designed for family and pastoral ministry, their essence applies to all of life and ministry.
They compel you to take an accurate measure of the things that God treasures for us: soul-satisfying and life-giving relationships, multiplying influence in leadership, a deep sense of belonging to community, a realistic plan for healthy growth, and the priority of progressive transformation into the likeness of Christ.
Finally, God’s grace to us cannot be measured.
God likes to take the measure of things. He counts, numbers, dates, weighs, and measures (Ps. 147:4, Matt. 10:30, Dan. 5:26, 1 Sam. 2:3, Prov. 21:2, Isa. 40:12).
So it’s all the more fascinating that he has chosen us to be his children, when we clearly do not measure up (Rom. 3:23).
The mystery of God’s mercy is that it is unmerited and without measure (Rom. 3:24-25).
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:11-12).
Its through his power to save and his desire to preserve us, we can look forward to when he takes the final measure of our lives: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (1 Pet. 3-5; Matt. 25:21).
