As we end this year, I am reflecting on what really matters in a leader’s life. Please indulge me a bit as I wander through some hallways of rhetorical fog and hopefully come out on the other end with some thoughts to take away.
Like anyone, my life includes a mix of successes and failures, losses and gains. I have been well-off, and I have been financially challenged. I have belonged, and have felt like I did not fit it. I have struggled to find a mate, and now I’ve been married for years. My wife and I struggled to have kids, and now we have three.
I have stayed up late, year after year, to attain a professional degree, and I have been a teacher to others. I have seen professional success, and at times I’ve experienced professional confusion. I have been an immigrant, and I have helped others find their home. I have built a company to be proud of, and I have struggled and failed to pull a team together. I have lost my dad, then my stepdad, both great men. I have gained three wonderful children. The mosaic of life is a beautiful drama, a tragedy, and a comedy, all in one.
Or is it? Is that how God sees our life? What really matters? What should be our goal? Is it health? Wealth? Peace? Contentment? Family? Kids?
I have a family member who has dedicated his life to his children. His teen daughter is dating someone he does not approve of, and they have become estranged. He always told me, “Life is all about our kids.” Now that his daughter is giving him a hard time, I see him depressed. Is life all about our kids? What if your kids die, God forbid, then what happens to you?
Each day comes, and each day goes. One year comes, and then it goes. Wars take shape. People are born, and people die. People make it, and people lose it. As Solomon said, “nothing is new under the sun.”
Sometimes, we feel we have discovered something new. We aim high. With years of toiling we achieve it, but then we look around and think, now what? I spent my whole life achieving. Now that I have arrived, what do I do? Achieve some more?
Without an eternal perspective, life is simply a chase after the wind. Your hands cannot catch the wind. There is nothing to hold. In fact, nothing has much meaning outside of God.
I love leadership. I love being a good steward. I love to make a positive impact on those around me. That’s why I write and speak. But to what end? What is the end game? To feel that I did that? To feel that I accomplished something great?
The writer of Ecclesiastes (who we think is Solomon) says, the end of the matter is, or the meaning of life is, to fear God and keep His commandments.
To “keep His commandments” is easier to understand; simply do what God said to do (in the Bible). What does “fear God” mean? It means to honor God. How do we honor God practically? That’s a journey we have to go on to discover.
As you look ahead to 2025, you may have many goals you wish to achieve. Many dreams. Many things you want to become and to gain. But if “fear God and keep His commandments” is not at the very top of your list and the focus of everything you do, I am afraid you will find yourself chasing the wind.
So that is what I wish for you and for me in the year ahead, that in all things, we fear God and keep His commandments.
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