Editor’s Note: This article is part of Spurgeon College Month, a celebration of the mission of Spurgeon College to equip students to live faithfully for the Kingdom. Learn more about Spurgeon College Month and participate in various giveaways here.
There are many ways you can, to use a charged phrase, “waste your life.” A major one many experience is being so caught up in the narrative, opportunities, and giftings of another that you completely neglect your own.
This has never been easier. In the age of micro and macro influencers, “Christian celebrities,” and whatever other category you’d like to include, it has never been easier to see people receive opportunities we would like, develop the gifts and skills we lack, or move confidently into a future we desire but cannot see. Before long, you are so acquainted with where you should be by age 30 in order to look like someone that you are crippled and incapacitated with discontentment.
There is a hard word that we must often receive to be faithful to what God has called us to and that we must keep in mind if we are to rejoice in the opportunities and giftings extended to others: You are not your own.
At the end of the Gospel of John, Peter asks a version of this question from a different set of circumstances. When Jesus told him where obedience would lead (John 21:18), Peter looked toward John and asked, “Lord, what about this man?” (21:21).
Jesus did not bother explaining John’s future or justify Peter’s. He simply answered, “What is that to you? You follow me!”
Peter’s problem was not that he wanted information. Peter’s problem was that he wanted to manage a life that belonged to Christ—and far too often, so do we. And Jesus’s answer to both is the same: “What is that to you? You follow me!”
What Is That to You?
At first, Jesus’s response may sound sharp. Peter has just learned that following Christ will eventually cost him his life! Is it really unreasonable for him to wonder what will happen to John?
I have studied and worked in the college and seminary sphere for nearly a decade, and I have seen and experienced a similar sentiment, albeit at much lower stakes typically. Whether it be occupationally, related to life experience, opportunities within a church, or some other sphere of desire in the ministry world, there will be someone who receives opportunities that are more desirable than the ones you receive.
This tension has more potential potency the more experienced one becomes. There are skills or qualities that you will possess more of than another because God has gifted you in one way, and another person in another way. When another who is “less qualified” gets an opportunity that you are perfect for, this is a prime opportunity to wallow in self-pity.
We do not need these comparisons indulged in the slightest. John’s future belongs to Christ, Peter’s future belongs to Christ, and your future belongs to Christ. The responsibility for any individual who would submit their life to Christ, then, is not to determine whether two have received equally desirable lives or equal opportunity. It is to follow Jesus with the life one has been given.
You Follow Me!
Some of the people I admire most are also the least preoccupied with themselves. This is not the self-absorption that sometimes masquerades as self-deprecation. They simply do not treat their own status, recognition, or importance as the supreme concern in every situation.
I once reviewed the work of a seminary professor who had profoundly influenced my understanding of the Bible. I was young, freshly graduated with my MDiv, and had just begun my PhD. He had every reason to ignore my feedback. I offered several suggestions and watched him implement them without hesitation. I was more uncomfortable offering the edits than he was receiving them. His identity was secure enough that he did not need to defend his expertise against every recommendation.
I also remember sitting across from one of my pastors as a newlywed. My wife and I told him, bright-eyed, about our hopes for the future and our desire to partner with our church in overseas missions. It was three or four years before I learned that immediately before our conversation, he had been pleading with someone not to leave his wife, only to be met with a hard heart. I knew none of this at the time because my pastor was completely present with us. His own burden did not keep him from entering into our hope.
These men were free to receive from me and give themselves to others because they were not occupied with protecting their own prominence—they had wholly given themselves to the service of Another.
This type of character and outlook comes only from remembering one truth: Your life belongs to Christ. Your gifts, opportunities, obscurity, prominence, and future is His. You don’t need to seize another’s calling or size them up.
Instead, we are to do what He spoke to Peter many years ago: “You follow me!” A life lived faithfully in the Kingdom of God is not necessarily the one with a big following or flashing lights. A life lived faithfully in the Kingdom is one that is so occupied with the work and decrees of the King that there is no room to be unnecessarily preoccupied with self.
You may not receive the opportunities you believe you deserve. Someone less experienced may advance more quickly. Someone else’s lesser effort may receive greater recognition. But none of these change Christ’s command: “You follow me!”
The life of the person beside you belongs to Jesus. So does yours. What is that to you? You follow Him.