What If We Stopped Trying to "Be Someone"?

During Spring Break of my senior year of high school, I drove to Florida with about a dozen of my best friends and their moms. Along with my bathing suit, beach towel, and clothes, I packed a full-sized hurdle and starting block in the trunk of our van. Every morning during that vacation, I woke up before the rest of the house and practiced my start and approach to the first hurdle. 

If you have ever run track, you know that your speed to the first hurdle can easily make or break a race, and I was determined to qualify for state. Despite the mockery of friends and finding my hurdle in the backyard pool some mornings, I persevered.

And it paid off. The last time I checked, I still hold my school’s record for the 300 hurdles.

When I moved to New York City after college, I quickly learned that these high school records and state qualifications impressed nobody. As Pastor Tim Keller famously said, you might come to New York City being the best violinist in your little hometown, only to get to Penn Station and find out that the begging person playing in the station while people throw coins into his case is actually better than you are.

This was most certainly my experience, as well. As a big fish in a little Ohio pond, I was seeking to be someone significant, but quickly learned that I was about as impressive as a minnow in the big pond of Manhattan.

While running in my mid-20s was more of a hobby than a pedestal, it still had a place in my life, and as I wrestled with questions about my identity as an adult, I joined a church and Bible study where I met a perfect running partner.

Lauren had many reasons to boast. Not only could she outpace me in our runs through Central Park, but she also held a job at the most prestigious financial firm in New York, arguably the world. She graduated from an elite college and also had a laundry list of athletic achievements from her earlier years. She was engaged to be married to someone who shared her pedigree, yet she boasted of only one thing. Jesus.

She was the kind of person whose Christian liberty could cause her to give away an entire six-figure bonus in her early 20s, but freely buy a second home in her late 20s, all while reminding me that the most radiant person in eternity might be a career-less mom whose name nobody knew on earth.

While a few years younger than me, she had no problems risking our friendship by reprimanding me for my sin, which she reminded me was “not that special,” so my whoa-is-me struggles shouldn’t be rambled on about all the time; yet, she would listen for hours as I did that rambling, often at the expense of her sleep (a precious thing for someone who works NYC finance hours).

Though I was a friend who brought nothing to the table, she freely gave everything she had—her time, her money, even her spare bedroom for months when I needed temporary housing.

What Are We Boasting In?

Lauren was someone who lived like she believed Psalm 103:15-17. While she had every excuse to boast in herself and her accomplishments, and had no reason to give anything to someone like me, she knew that her life was but a breath and all that mattered was the eternal love of God for her in Christ Jesus.

As for man, his days are like grass—he blooms like a flower of the field; when the wind passes over it, it vanishes, and its place is no longer known. But, from eternity to eternity the Lord’s faithful love is towards those who fear him.

Eric Ledell is a Christian track icon, known most famously for refusing to run his most favored race (100-meter dash) in the Olympics because it was held on a Sunday. The movie, Chariots of Fire, is about his life, and in it Ledell says, “I believe God made me for a purpose—but He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

However, Eric also knew that God’s pleasure in him while doing what he was made to do—run—existed whether he got an Olympic medal or not. Though he probably put in hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours training for that Olympic race, he was also able to pause his aspirations to remember and rest in God.

By laying down the Olympics, Ledell instead embraced the freedom of an identity in Christ that was so secure he could pause for the Sabbath, a day given as a gift for his enjoyment and God’s honor (Mark 2:28-28), trusting that God would provide what he needed in the next race.

As a homeschooling mom today, my award- and accolade-seeking days are, in many ways, long gone, but I do still feel the pull to be someone often. The world around me shouts to do more, be more, achieve more, and excel more. But Jesus whispers, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28-30).

Where Do Our Accolades Ultimately Belong?

Runners like my friend, Lauren, and Olympian Eric Ledell can remind us that in this race of life, it is important to pause in our striving and remember who God is—the creator and ruler of all, whose love is eternal; and who we are—grass, whose place will eventually remember it no more. 

Not only is New York City not impressed with my accolades now, but any “crowns” I do win in this life will one day be joyfully cast at the feet of my Savior, Jesus (Revelation 4:9-11).

The joy of Christian living is knowing that we do not need to strive to make a name for ourselves—our names have been written on His hand.

Though the world will forget us and anything significant we have done, He will not forget us (Isaiah 49:15-17). While our lives might even sometimes require us to push more than we like, our work in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:57-58).

But when that desire to strive for something more for our own sake creeps in—that nagging voice that reminds us of how useless and meaningless our lives are apart from our accomplishments—we can confidently sing as the famous hymn says,

“I will lay my deadly doing down, down at Jesus’ feet. I will trust in him and him alone, gloriously complete.”

1. James Proctor, “It is Finished” in Christian Endeavor Hymns, #53 (The Biglow & Main Co., 1894), 55.