Accomplishment

 October 22, 2021

When I was still in elementary school, my mother came home one day and announced to me that she had seen my IQ test, that I had scored well above average, and she expected me to live up to it. She never did disclose what my score actually was, which makes me wonder in retrospect whether that announcement was merely a ploy to get me to work harder. Back then, it wasn’t considered poor parenting to push your child to excel academically, but I’ve lived in the shadow of that afternoon my entire life.

I think I’ve worked hard, but I’ve watched others accomplish far more than I, and have often wondered whether I’ve lived up to my potential. That’s an OK thought when you’re twenty, but it’s a bit late when you’re seventy-two. 

I don’t suppose I’m the only one who has looked back on life and wished I had made better choices in one or another matter. I’ve invested most of my life in this little village I call home, while other pastors I know have moved to what they considered bigger and better places. I’ve often phrased it thusly: “We can choose breadth or depth of experience, but not both.” I don’t have the breadth of experience that comes with living in different places, but I do have the depth of friendships that go back nearly forty years.

Nevertheless, I have often wondered about that announcement my mother made so many years ago, but just when my reminiscences begin to turn into regrets, I come across a Scripture much like this morning’s reading from Psalm 22. This psalm is  what Jesus quoted while hanging on the cross for our sins, speaking of the suffering he endured for us. But the psalm doesn’t wallow in self-pity or despair; Jesus didn’t wonder as he hung there dying, whether his life had been worth it. He didn’t see the crowds that followed, then fainted; he didn’t bemoan having lived 33 years in a backwater part of the Roman Empire, never traveling more than 90 miles from home except when his parents were exiles in Egypt when he was a toddler.

This is what was on his mind: 

“Future generations will serve him; 

they will speak of the Lord to the coming generation. 

People not yet born will be told: 

“The Lord saved his people.””

—Psalm 22:30-31 

I certainly wouldn’t put myself anywhere near on par with our Lord Jesus Christ, but the words of this psalm give me the same encouragement they gave him at the most difficult time of his life. If I have accomplished no more than to pass along to my children the faith I follow, it will have been enough. Knowing they follow Christ and are teaching their children to do the same tells me that if everything else I ever accomplished went up in smoke, my life still would not have been wasted.