acing life

Middle School Student Aces SATs

One of my co-workers shared this article this morning. For me, Varun's story invokes neither awe nor admiration - I mostly feel pity. Not because his accomplishments aren't impressive - they are pretty amazing things for a middle-schooler to have achieved. But perhaps I feel for this boy whose identity, whether he likes it or not, has already become wrapped around being a great athlete and musician and student.

It reminds me of how I felt growing up. I wanted deeper friendships, but couldn't seem to find any. In response, I tried to ace my classes, trained myself to be athletic, learned how to play the guitar, and attempted to be an all-around nice guy.

But a sad secret of life is that being admired does not make you a better candidate to be someone's friend. It makes you a good candidate to be someone's god; it makes you a good candidate to be a trinket in someone's trophy room. The effort I made and the success I achieved contributed to the distance I felt from others.

Before I run off to fail at life intentionally, I know there's a danger in overcompensating in the other direction. Downplaying every little gift I've been given because I'm afraid that people will see me differently. It is like the valedictorian that says, "I'm not that smart," or the star athlete who says, "There are people better than me." This may all be true, but it does not make anyone feel any better to hear that the smartest person they know is pretty dumb.

One great miracle of Jesus is that He somehow levels the playing field. It is written that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. He enables the best abilities in me to glorify God by allowing me to say, "If I am so great, how much greater must Jesus be?" And it enables the most wretched weakness in me to scream, "How perfect was Jesus compared to this sinful man? How loving was God to send His only Son for someone like me?"

Kings are only a foreshadowing of the greater King of Kings, and the sinner is the negative space in which God's glory shines. How could there ever be a circumstance where Jesus cannot be praised? And so I praise him both when I ace life and when I fail at it. I don't want to frustrate the world with my false humility or a bloated ego.

"You make everything glorious, and I am yours, what does that make me"