In ninth grade, I attended a great private school. It was one of those smaller, Christian schools that taught Latin. And it was the type where a teacher could smack you on the back of the head with a ruler if you weren’t doing your schoolwork during the assigned time. All of the faculty and parents seemed to be okay with that. Fortunately, I never had a problem with any of my teachers or the administration. I was a straight-A student and all of my teachers loved me.
But one day, my Latin teacher asked me to come by his office after class. He sat me down and said, “I don’t think you’re living up to your full potential.”
Frankly, this baffled me. I mean, yes I was getting a 95 on my test when I could have gotten 100, but that was still an A. Those extra points don’t matter. A 95 is a 4.0 on the GPA scale. A 100 is a 4.0 on the GPA scale. And guess what? So is a 90.
I couldn’t understand why the teacher was giving me a hard time when I was doing so well in school.
But as the conversation progressed, I learned something from this teacher who obviously cared about me enough to tell me the hard truths.
The external measurements of success aren’t enough. I was doing the bare minimum to get by in school. It appeared that I was an excellent student, but actually I was a lazy student. I wasn’t reaching my full potential because I was living by other people’s measurements. As long as the education system said I was successful, I felt like I was successful. As long as others thought I was reaching for greatness, I thought I was reaching for greatness.
Throughout my whole time in school, I’d never had a teacher tell me something like that. Every other teacher was satisfied with my performance because I fit within the confines of the system of mediocrity. I even stood out as an exceptional student within the system of mediocrity. But the problem was, I was still inside the system. I wasn’t doing anything remarkable because I was still living within the confines of a system that hates individuality and innovation.
Maintaining and doing well is not enough. In order to be considered faithful with what God has given you, you have to develop it.
So my question for you is this: What has God given you and what are you doing to develop it? Are you faithful to go the extra mile, or do you scrape by with the bare minimum?