You Don’t Have To Make A Huge Impact To Be Useful
Many people feel that, in order to be useful to others, they need to be great. If they feel like they are lacking in greatness, they can feel that perhaps there is no point in what they do.
While being able to make a huge impact on the world is can be wonderful for its effects, we must understand that impact does not necessarily equal greatness.
This is important to understand because we all have unique, distinct purposes.
Some people experience renown, others do not.
Some people’s gifts are valued while others are overlooked.
Some people are remembered for generations to come while most are forgotten.
From our human perspective, it can seem like some people are more “special” and favored while others are less so. Why else such a disparity? we think. But in actuality, there is no hierarchy, just function.
An assistant pastor is not less important than the head pastor.
Someone who runs a small business is not less significant than someone who founded a massive corporation.
A person with millions of followers on social media is not better than someone who only have a small following.
A spouse who is “behind-the-scenes” is not less significant than their spouse who is in the public eye.
I know it may be hard to believe, but that is because we measure ourselves by human standards. However, if you understand that we are all born with different strengths, limitations and roles, you can grasp that it is not possible for us all to have the same type of impact.
God does not expect us all to be “great” in the standard sense because things like our reception in society or the role we are meant to occupy.
What matters most is that we maximize our gifts and the quality of love with which we serve others, which are the only things within our control.
“Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.”
It is interesting because, while in this world, greatness is about man’s glory, in the afterlife, “greatness” pertains to how much self-importance is cast aside for the love of God and one’s neighbor. Basically, greatness is defined as the opposite in the other world.
I am not saying that people should use this as an excuse not to make anything of themselves while on Earth. We should apply our gifts for the betterment of humanity, but impact should not be equated to a human being’s value neither should it be the main goal. Impact is just a byproduct and all we have to do is show up.
If you struggle with wondering if you are doing enough, try not to compare yourself to others. It is very natural and human to have these feelings, but if you immerse yourself in work you genuinely enjoy for the sake of service, they won’t haunt you so much. It is about understanding love is the highest aim.
The beauty of the afterlife is that you don’t have to figure out your grander purpose or need to focus on survivalism, which may get in the way of what you feel to be your higher path. In heaven, we are all given a function we love that connects and contributes to the greater whole with none being too small.
“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”
