Every year, most of us go through a performance appraisal at work. We recount all the things we did great, and the things that were not so great. But that's just the lookback. Appraisal time is also about what comes next - what's our potential, and what self-improvement is needed to fulfil that potential.
At some point though, more and more of us will actually get closer and closer to that potential, especially as we get older. I am a firm believer in the growth mindset propounded by the psychologist Carol Dweck. But still, there are limits.
There are some jobs in my workplace that I am highly unlikely to be able to do well, just because I don't have the talent or time to put in the work to get good at them. I can be better than I am today, but I think it's also fair to assume that I will never be a NBA basketball player, mathematics professor or Chinese poet.
Also, even if we think we can grow into various other roles, whether upwards or laterally, our bosses may not think the same. Our employers have their corporate needs too. While good individual bosses will help their people fulfil their potential, the corporate employer itself does not principally exist to help me fulfil my individual potential.
I hope I'm not at that plateau yet, but what do we do, when we do reach those sorts of life plateaus?
Last week, I heard my pastor preach on the need for perpetual personal transformation. My initial reaction was, hmm. I have a regular spiritual life and daily devotions. I give faithfully to church. I serve the church in various capacities. I have grown my cell group, and raised and mentored new leaders to run their respective cells. I go on regular mission trips. I'm even taking initial steps to plant an overseas church with some other friends. Look, I still fail in many things, and often let God down in my daily life. But how much more can I be for God? Surely this is all there is, I've reached my plateau.
And then I recalled, or perhaps God spoke to me even as pastor preached - when I first became a believer, I thought it would be great if I went to church and cell group every week. So I grew and changed, and I became a regular church-goer, and I liked it. But secretly, I thought to myself, that's enough, no need to change my life too much.
But God had more for me when I reached the milestone of being a regular church-goer. I started to think it would be great if I consistently lived out my faith outside of church and cell group, and helped my leaders do their thing. So I grew and changed, and I became an active believer, and I liked it. But secretly, I thought to myself, that's enough, I'll never want to take the responsibility of being a leader.
But God had more for me when I reached the milestone of being an active believer. I felt the calling to serve Him more, so I went out, found whoever I could find, put together a new cell group, and asked to be allowed to lead them. So I grew and changed, and I became a cell leader, and I liked it. Sometimes I would get asked to step up and be a leader of leaders, but I loudly declared to everyone, that's enough, I'll never want to take the responsibility of being a leader of leaders.
But God had more for me. And today I am a leader of leaders. I'm still no good at it, and am wildly trying to learn on the job. Just as with every other phase in the past, I don't want to be any more. But I think I've learned that when I figure this latest phase out, God will STILL have more for me. Church planting, church growing, overseas mission work, who knows where He will lead me. But there. Is. More.
I can already see how, even when my own selfish potential is truly maxed out one day, there will still be more. My
selfish role - the stuff that I do, I achieve, I win - that will plateau, and even diminish. But my
generous role - the stuff that I help others to do, others to achieve, others to win - that will continue to grow, so that those who follow after me will be more successful than me. My ceiling will be their floor.
I look back on when I first started - at work as a newbie employee, at home as a newbie husband, in ministry as a newbie church-goer. Who I am, and what I've ended up doing, is pretty unrecognisable from who I was, and what I thought I was capable of, or even what I wanted.
It's all because of Him. And all this despite my best efforts at getting constantly sidetracked by my wandering attention. The world eventually gets tired of us, and tells us sorry, you're maxxed out, and no longer relevant. But God - God always has more.
In the final chapter of the final book of C.S. Lewis' wonderful series "The Chronicles of Narnia", after many many adventures, Peter, Edmond, Lucy and the others finally arrive in Real Narnia. There, they are able to run without getting tired, through ever more astonishing landscapes. "Further up, further in!" is their repeated refrain, as they adventure ever more into Real Narnia, even re-encountering all their dear old and lost friends and family.
In the very final paragraph, and this is my favourite ending of any book I have ever read, Lewis writes:
"... the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.
But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
I cannot put it any better. With God, there is always more. A choice to follow Him, is a choice to elect a joyful, purposeful life in which whatever we encounter here eventually leads us to Chapter One of the Great Story, which goes on forever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before.
So I will keep listening. Keep obeying. Keep being transformed. Keep adventuring. There is more!
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