What are dreams made of? Not the dreams we have while sleeping, but those we live with, the ones we hold before us while making decisions, while planning the future. Yesterday, I saw again how deeply recognition plays a part in those dreams. It's not enough to be an architect, or a musician, or teacher. Somebody needs to know our names. We desire significance.
You, however, do not agree.
As for those who seemed important, whatever they were makes no difference. God does not judge by external appearance.--Galatians 2:6
Whatever gifts You give me, You give by intention. If I have physical strength, You expect me to use it; if I have imagination, You expect me to use it; if I have intelligence, You expect me to use it, but you do it to better define my relationship to You, not my relationship to other men. Fame, position, title, caste, nobility, office all define us, but only before one another. They provide platforms of easy, thoughtless, relation based on external importance, meaningless before You.
President. General. Winner. Her majesty. Professor. Doctor. Reverend. Chief. Supervisor. First Assistant Bookkeeper. As titles measure accomplishment in obedience to your commands, they have meaning. As they become vehicles of pride or ends in themselves, titles become snares.
I am to love You first, work for You first, serve You first. My intersection with other men can never obscure my vision of You. Whatever success I attain, whatever praise or recognition, must be measured not against other men, but against what I have done in obedience to your specific command to me. I can easily succeed before men, but fail before You. This is holiness: the measure of my success in seeking You, finding You, and obeying You with joy.
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