Men who achieve significant positions in this life run one of the greatest risks. The risk is to identify who you are as a person with the position. The heartache comes when you no longer have the position, and you realize people were not interested in you because you were you but because of the position you held.

A retired man said, “We come into this world as babies, and that’s the way we go out. I used to be able to pick up the phone and talk to anybody I wanted to. Enjoy your power while you can, because once you retire, they don’t return your calls anymore.”

Here’s the issue: If what you do is who you are, then who are you when you don’t do what you do anymore? Let’s all make sure we don’t wrap our identity up in what we do.

Until every church disciples every man…

Pat

(Adapted from the 25th Anniv. Ed. of The Man in the Mirror)