"Peter asked Jesus, “What about him, Lord?” Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”
It’s about this time of the year that I start taking
interest in the three-year old thoroughbreds that are racing throughout the
country. I love horse racing because I love the majesty of these beasts
who are bred to run and do so with all they have each and every time they are
taken to the starting gate. I used to say that I wanted my company filled
with thoroughbreds. It is a good analogy, but also one that can backfire
if taken to the extreme. Thoroughbreds are great comparators of each
other. From the time they see another, they begin to size them up and the
adrenaline starts flowing to see who can outrun the other. Get them next
to each other and it takes a good trainer and jockey to keep them from looking
left and right to see who is ahead or behind them. When this happens they
lose focus and can become distracted. Sounding familiar? Yes, we do
the same in our work. We start running and then we start looking left and
right to compare and see how we are doing. And, with “big data” there
will be more and more of the opportunity to compare. Looking left and
right gets us only one thing; a sore neck. Sure we need to know where our
competition stands and what they are doing, but becoming fixated and obsessed
about where we stand in comparison can take us off our game and ironically,
make us lose ground.
God doesn’t want us to look left and right. He asks
us to fix our eyes on Him, without distraction or comparison to others. If we
have found ourselves in a place of obsession about how we are tracking (titles,
salary, material things) versus our peers, then today would be a good day to
spend time asking God to take this from us, and instead instill fulfillment
and joy in knowing that we are doing our best for Him. They say
Thoroughbreds are a little crazy about what kind of horse they are compared to
the others. We want to run our race well and do so to our best abilities
and potential but we don’t want to let ourselves take on the obsessions that
can come with comparison.
Reference: John 21: 21-22 (New Living Translation)
No comments:
Post a Comment