When Proving Yourself Doesn't Work

My family loves athletics. Two of my younger brothers are tall guys and have a pretty good advantage in the field. My youngest brother, though, has a problem because he's 3-4 inches shorter than all the other boys his age. Naturally, it's a sensitive issue for the 11-year-old. Every time we play sports, he tries so hard to prove that he has "it" in him, that he can be just as good as the other boys his age. And nearly every time (if he doesn't do well) he ends up incredibly discouraged because he just can't match up.

He's not the alone, though. "Proving ourselves" is an occupation most of mankind enters into. We want to show what we're made of, that we can be as athletic, as together, as smart, as musical, as good-looking, as talented, as eloquent as our peers. The problem is that we can't always match up, and the chances are, there's always going to be somebody who ranks better on the scoreboard. What are you going to do? Are you going to spend you life beating yourself up about it and working as hard as you can to measure up?

If "who you are" is built on any of those things, you'll be doing exactly that. You'll be working so hard to prove that you can do it, and you'll kill yourself when you can't because you failed at your unspoken goal in life.
There's only one thing you can build your identity on that will never let you down and will enable you to rejoice when others score higher than yourself. That is Jesus Christ. When we realize that he achieved for us everything we really need, we can learn to appreciate the gifts of others for the sheer joy of the gift, and stop sizing ourselves up against them. Yes, we can work hard to cultivate our God-given gifts and invest our talents. But we no longer have to prove ourselves because we can be satisfied in the Gospel and marvel in the fact that Jesus took care of our greatest need at the cross. And when you place your confidence in that, and you can throw proving yourself to the wind.