Two hundred years ago, just 12% of people could read. Today the worldwide literacy rate is 87%, with first-world countries at 99%. But we’ll never read even a fraction of what’s available. The volume of media now being created is staggering. Every day 7.5 million blog posts are published to the internet, along with 252,000 new websites, and 720,000 hours of video—a day. Google will process 4.5 billion web searches every 24 hours.[1] The amount of content being made and consumed every single day is greater than all of the accumulated knowledge of mankind, from Creation until the 1980s. Every. Day.
As a leader, it makes you wonder if anything that you do, or say—any idea or action or invention or speech or equation or hypothesis—could possibly make any difference whatsoever. Apple founder Steve Jobs once said, “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why even be here?” He may have been among the last of the dreamers. The notion that anyone could have an impact beyond their own lifespan is increasingly small. And how would you even go about making your important message stand out in the endless and expanding sea of texts, posts and vids that are dumped on the world daily by the billions?
Who had a lasting impact on the world during the last hundred years? A few names come to mind—Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billy Graham, Neil Armstrong, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, Alexander Graham Bell. Now go back 500 years. Any names come to mind? Gutenberg, da Vinci, Columbus, Shakespeare, Napoleon. Is there any chance at all that your life and leadership will be significant enough that your legacy will be written about in the next millennium? Will our successors look back in the year 2525 and talk about Obama, or Musk, or Putin, or Buffett, or Osteen, or Spielberg, or Ronaldo? Who will have done something, anything, that really matters?
The test of time. The real issue is the challenge of time itself. We don’t begin our lives thinking, “How might I live this 80-or-so years in a meaningful way? What can I do with my life to make a dent in the universe?” If we ever do reach that point of thought, it’s usually after we’ve used up at least 60 of those years. Now we’re hopelessly grasping at anything we can squeeze out of the last 20. When we’re young we have all the time in the world. And once we realize that isn’t true, we never have enough left to do anything with it. This was a common thought back in the time of the Bible—even they realized that life is short! James 4:14 reminds us, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Is there anything, really, that we can do in life and leadership to stand the test of time?
From making a dent to passing the hammer. Where most of us find our greatest sense of meaning is not in a certain task or challenge. Rather it’s in our closest relationships. We realize that the great scientists, inventors, philosophers, leaders, generally spent so much of their lives engaged in that one thing, they had little time to spare for the joys of life itself. Faced with the choice of climbing the enormous mountain of significance for civilization, or instead climbing just high enough to see the road ahead, we choose the latter. It’s our spouse, our children, our friends and family, that will receive the great benefit of our lives lived. We provide for them, love them, take interest and invest in them, mentor and teach them, and strive for their lives to become better than our own. And this was intended by God for us. Perfection for His creation was man and woman and God, walking together daily in the Garden of Eden. God’s expectation was not that man would build cities, or travel through space, or invent algebra. It was that we would enjoy and grow in our relationship with Him and with one other.
That darn dash. All of us have visited a cemetery. Likely we’ve buried a loved one, or paid our respects at the grave of someone we knew, or even someone famous. The lives of those in the cemetary are represented by a small dash between two dates. For us, that dash will not yield a scientific breakthrough, or a lasting charitable foundation, or a literary work for the ages. For nearly everyone, at every level of leadership, the dash will simply represent a series of moments where we interacted and impacted the lives of those we know and love.
What of your life or mine will withstand the test of time? What will we do or leave that is lasting and has meaning? God began with a simple relationship between Himself and man, and that’s His end-goal. That you and I would join Him and heaven and enjoy Him for eternity. Lasting impact will happen, but it will not happen on earth, and we can’t look for it here. Instead, if we are mindful of the time we have and consider where we can make the greatest impact, we will pour ourselves into our loved ones, our children, those within our sphere of influence. We’ll give them the truth of God and of eternity, and then we’ll prepare them for a billion-billion years in heaven as we prioritize conversations and activities around faith and friendship.
The test of time is passed not by those who are counting minutes, or even those whose goal is to make a mark for a millennium. The test of time is passed by those who look beyond God’s “In the beginning…” and into the “forever and ever, amen.” Leader, you are not a temporary fixture in an eternal universe. Rather, you are an eternal creature in a temporary universe. It’s not what you have done. It’s who you have won, by faith in Christ, to the Kingdom that has no end.
[1] https://diviflash.com/website-statistics/
Cover photo: Shutterstock
What will you do of significance with the 80-or-so years you have? When we’re young we have all the time in the world. And once we realize that isn’t true, we never have enough left to do anything with it.