Questioning Your Doubts

Category: Influence

  • You Matter

    You Matter

    As of January 2022, the current world population is 7.9 billion. You are one person. The current life expectancy in the United States for a baby born in the first half 2020 is 77.3 years. Does the life of one person out of nearly 8 billion matter? What of lasting value can be accomplished in a lifespan of less than one century? More specifically, does your life matter or will your life matter?

    Stroll through a graveyard and you will realize the following:

    The world was here before you arrived, and it will go on without you. This fact is true no matter how wealthy you are or how influential you have been in life. The birth and death dates on a gravestone attest to this truth.

    You matter to your friends and family. Although the world will go on without you, you are irreplaceable. You are genetically unique (unless, of course, you are an identical twin). Your life experiences and your choices based on those experiences are unique (true even for identical twins). What you have to offer the world in the dash between the date of your birth and the date of your death is unique. You are valuable not because you are the smartest person in the room, the fastest runner in the race, or the richest person in town. You are valuable just as you are – with your strengths and your limitations, your courage and your doubts, your triumphs and your mistakes.

    From a spiritual perspective, God loves you and values you. Read 1 John 4:7-12.

    What will do today to live out your purpose?

  • In good hands

    In good hands

    Confidence is a necessary item, especially in young people. Looking over a few of the press clippings from when I was an undergraduate at Penn State University, I found my response to a newspaper editorial when I was only twenty years old and freshly appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania to serve on a University Board of Trustees with 31 Trustees who were highly successful adults in their fifties and sixties – CEOs of banks and pharmaceutical companies, politicians, and leaders of labor unions.

    Newspaper clipping of letter to the editor

    My response to an editorial addressing whether or not I was ready for such a position included the following phrase, “The question is not whether I am ready for the “big wigs” mentioned in the editorial, but rather are they ready for me.” Pure confidence that I find myself admiring as a person now approaching the age of some of those other 31 Trustees.

    What our world needs now, and what the church world needs as well, is young people with confidence. Sure, they have a lot to learn, as I did (and still do). However, our world is not going to get better without confident young people in every field of endeavor. Confidence is no sin. Of course, our confidence must go beyond the limits of our human abilities, to a faith beyond ourselves (Hebrews 11:1).

    However, my concern is that young people would not lose hope, would not turn away from the desire to take the reins of leadership and create a better world than the generation who came before them. I remain grateful for the 31 older, wiser adults that created a genuine seat at the table of leadership for a young woman and taught her how to think through issues, formulate workable solutions, and create policies that result in lasting organizational change.

    When young people aspire to lead and believe in a better tomorrow, we are all in good hands.