In life, we learn and grow, choose and become. One single human life contains an equilibrium to itself, made up of whatever morals we held, skills we learned, self-control we gained, strength we grew, knowledge we discovered, truth we accepted, friends we earned, enemies we notarized, fruits we yielded, gratitude we gave, and beauty we beheld.
Skill, hard work, learning, and stewardship are some pieces of a much larger ecosystem. All of the components of a healthy life can never be exhausted or listed since living life includes searching out what it means to live. Knowledge becomes outdated or added to. Stuff we gain from good stewardship decays and blows away in the wind. But, things like character and virtue matter eternally. From hard work and stewardship, we cannot help but gain good character and godly virtue because good character and godly virtue both require and lead to hard work and fruitful stewardship. But, the actual work and stewardship themselves are mere means to the greater ends of enjoyment and godliness that last into the next life.
Don’t sacrifice or overemphasize any one aspect of a well-rounded life over another. Like stones in an archway, every component is important. The ongoing quest is to identify all of the parts of your life that matter to your journey of today and remember them all throughout the day.
Remembering everything to remember is a near-impossible task. As ever-growing humans, our lives are prone to disproportion. Never think that you have arrived at perfect balance of the juggling act of life’s many values because the moment you become perfect, your purpose in life is expired and it’s time to pass on. God makes sure that we each die when we become as perfect as we will ever be—either by becoming nearly perfect or by refusing to.
We can never measure the impact or value of our own lives. You might help a million souls see the light or you might mentor only one child who does. Which is greater—the world-changer or his mentor—is for Eternity to decide. Gauge your life’s value, not by what you see in this lifetime, but by values transcending into Eternity.