How many times have you heard the phrase, “I was just trying to help.” Ironically, I think that might be the least helpful thing we can say.
But why do we feel like trying is so important?
Why does it feel like our efforts are validated by the effort itself?
If I spent a week digging a hole and shoveling the dirt into a pile with no intention to do anything of value with the dirt or the hole, would my efforts for that week have been successful?
I mean, I tried. I exerted a bunch of energy. I put forth a lot of effort.
But was any of it impactful?
Here’s a fundamental truth about human nature:
We’re okay with getting an A for effort and an F for impact.
“Trying” is an excuse for being afraid of doing what’s truly important.
I will try to quit drinking if I know I’m unwilling to stop alcoholism in its tracks.
I will try to help someone by giving them money if I’m unwilling to deal with their dysfunctional spending habits.
I will try to get along with everyone if I’m unwilling to be honest with them about their misbeliefs and behavior.
Striving for effort usually creates memories you can hold onto that make you feel good.
But striving for impact creates opportunities that bring freedom to people around you.
When your son catches the game-winning touchdown pass, it makes for a great memory because he tried hard.
But when he drops the game-winning touchdown pass, your compassion towards him makes for a great impact.
When the dysfunctional family gathers once a year for Thanksgiving dinner, it makes a memory because they were just trying to be normal.
But when you ruin Thanksgiving because you acknowledged pain and brokenness in an attempt to heal old wounds, it makes a great impact.
When you buy Christmas for a family living in poverty, it makes for a great memory.
But when you serve the homeless and impoverished and teach them employable skills, it makes for a great impact.
Great memories can be made along the way to making a great impact. But let’s not get confused about which is worth living for.
The generations that come after you are depending on your impact, not your effort.
The world says to take. Find what fulfills you. Go after what you want.
And yet, despite America being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Americans are some of the most dissatisfied people in the world.
That’s because we’ve developed a backwards view of value.
What you give to, lives. What you take from, dies.
The value of bank accounts, houses, and relationships are all built on what you give, not what you take.
What you give to increases in value.
What you take from loses value and eventually becomes detestable to you.
The things we hate the most are usually the things we’ve taken from the most.
Taking says, “I need more. Why can’t you give me more?”
Giving says, “I’m secure. I have more than enough. You are valuable to me and I’d like to invest in you.”
Abundance comes from security. Poverty comes from insecurity.
In finance, a “security” is a financial asset. It’s value that can be given in order to receive value back from the investment.
You can’t receive value from something you haven’t given to, and you can’t give what you don’t already have.
So if you find yourself lacking, the question, is, where is your security?
If your security is found in anything other than God alone, you’ll always find yourself lacking, and you’ll never have enough.
But if you can stop chasing the false security of comfort, achievement, and control, then you’ll find that the security you have left, in God alone, leaves you content and open-handed with the world.
So the determining factor in whether or not you’ll be fulfilled isn’t found what you can gain but rather what you can give.
Because what you give determines the value of your life.
No matter who you are or how spiritual you are, your view of God is incomplete.
No matter how much you know, what you know about God is only a portion of the full picture.
We like to think that what we currently know is all there is to be known.
At least, until we learn something new.
Then, once we realize that we weren’t 100% right, we think that by adding what we knew before to what we now know, we can now be 100% right again.
But we’re always missing at least some portion of truth.
Think back to the things you believed to be true a decade ago. You only had part of the picture. (And it’s still true today.)
So how could we think that we alone could see the full picture of God?
Paul, talking about the resurrection, says, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully…” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
What we believe to be true about God is only a portion of the picture of who God really is in all his fullness.
In fact, it’s impossible to fully know God strictly from your own personal perspective.
He’s too big for any one person to understand.
Paul said that the Church makes up the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 1:22-23)
In other words…
Christ is fully known only through the Church collectively.
Different parts of the body of Christ come together to create a whole picture.
You can’t know God fully outside of community in God’s church.
Ephesians 3 goes more in depth about how God’s purpose is to use the variety of believers within the body of Christ to showcase God’s glory to the world.
Paul calls it the “manifold wisdom of God” which just means “many diverse manifestations.”
In Ephesians 2, Paul also talks about how believers are like stones being built together on the cornerstone of Jesus into a dwelling place for God.
Each of us fits together to create the environment where God is fully known.
Here’s another way to put it:
Our view and knowledge of God is limited by our unity within the Body of Christ.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he’s talking to a diverse group of Christians in a large, thriving city.
The church was brand new and there were many types of people with many different types of beliefs.
And here’s what he says to them:
He prays that they would be rooted and established in love, which can only exist in community.
Then he prays that they would have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
This, he says, will lead them to being filled with the fullness of God.
Notice the order.
The fullness of God – the full knowledge of him that goes beyond what we can personally understand – is only experienced together with all the Lord’s people, rooted in love for one another.
Jesus was once asked what’s the greatest commandment in God’s Law.
He said that the first and greatest commandment is to love God.
But then he says something interesting.
He says that there’s a second commandment that is like the first, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-40)
The phrase Jesus used when he said that the second commandment “is like” the first commandment is a word in Greek that means the same as or of equal rank.
When you put Paul’s teaching in the context of what Jesus taught about loving others, the picture becomes much clearer…
The only way we truly come to know God in all his fullness is within the context of community with other believers.
In isolation, our view of God is always slightly incomplete.
There’s a portion of God’s character that you can only experience through other believers.
Of course, the friction of someone else’s view of God rubbing against our view of God is really uncomfortable.
But in that friction, we get to wrestle with the parts of God we didn’t previously know.
Unity drives God’s blessings according to Psalm 133, and unity is how the world comes to know Jesus, according to John 17.
So when people frustrate you, remember that you both need each other to see the full picture and know God fully.
And without the other, you’ll both miss out on what you’re intended to get.
Of everything you’re doing right now, what will matter in a thousand years?
Jesus says in Revelation 1:8 that he is the one who is, who was, and who is to come.
His legacy is timeless, surviving all changes in the earth and all historical shifts in society.
If Jesus’ legacy is timeless, and Scripture says in 1 John that “in this world we are like Jesus” (1 John 4:17) then what are we doing that will stand the test of time?
Think of it this way: who can you name from a thousand years ago?
(I’ll give you a hint. It was the Middle Ages.)
Here are a few names you might know:
Joan of Arc
Charlemagne
Johannes Gutenberg
Marco Polo
Leonardo da Vinci
Genghis Khan
Unless you paid especially close attention in history class, you’d probably be hard-pressed to give any amount of detail about what any of those people did.
You probably know they were important. But were they impactful?
Important means “of great significance or value and likely to have a profound effect on success, survival, or well-being.”
Impactful means “to have a strong effect on someone or something.”
Importance is something we think is valuable. Impactful is something that changes things.
A City Council approving a new park to be built in your community is important. A father taking his son to that park every Saturday is impactful.
Do you see the difference?
Important things include:
Work
Projects
Household chores
Finances
Impactful things include:
Faith
Marriage
Parenting
Friendships
Important things are typically not people-centered. Impactful things always are.
And the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
You can do things that are both important and impactful. You can do work that changes people’s lives.
But important things tend to have a wide and shallow impact.
That’s because important work tends to be about providing something valuable to as many people as possible. In other words, it prioritizes reach over depth.
Impactful things, on the other hand, are all about depth and therefore tend to be more narrowly focused.
To have a genuine impact, it’s very difficult to spread out your efforts. Like drilling a well, impact tends to be an art of focused, consistent effort.
Now, here’s the important distinction:
Important work has the potential to be remembered for generations. But impactful work has the potential of being felt for generations.
There was a survey that asked teenagers to identify the person they admired most as a role model besides their parents.
(David Kinnaman, who directed the study, noted that parents were left out of the potential answers because so many teenagers either have high regard for their parents or feel otherwise compelled to list their parents as role models. To quote the study, “Previous research shows that mentioning parents is almost an automatic response for many.”)
In this survey, the respondents could have chosen musicians, athletes, community leaders, historical figures or any of the many, many, influential people kids learn to admire in popular culture and history classes.
But here were the most common answers:
37% answered a relative, such as a grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin, etc.
11% answered teachers and coaches
9% said friends
6% said a pastor or other religious leader they know personally
In total, nearly two-thirds of teenagers said their closest relationships within their communities were the most influential on their lives.
Entertainers came in at 6%, followed by athletes at 5%, political leaders at 4%, faith leaders at 4%, business leaders at 1%, authors at 1%, science and medical professionals at 1%, other artists at 1%, and members of the military at 1%.
That’s only about a quarter of the total responses that included people outside of close communities (although some of the answers, such as athletes and leaders, could have been local role models).
What’s noteworthy from this study is that pastors and even Jesus were listed less than 10% of the time. That means if you want your kids to learn about Jesus, you have to model it. That’s what they’re going to retain. And that’s what’s going to have the greatest impact.
You might be wondering, “But how? What does being an impactful person or role model look like?”
Well, the study asked the same thing.
And when asked why the participants identified the role models they selected, here were the top reasons:
26% listed personality traits like caring about others, being loving and polite, being courageous, and being fun
11% said they were encouraging, which included helping them be a better person, always being there for them, or being most interested in their future.
In other words, a huge chunk – 36% – of why someone made the “most influential” list in a young person’s life was simply because they were kind and compassionate.
Here were some other answers for why they selected who they did:
22% said they wanted to emulate them or follow in their footsteps
13% said that he or she accomplished their goals
9% said this person overcame adversity
7% said he or she works hard
That’s 51% of the reasons falling in the category of simply being respectable.
If we break all of those reasons down, here are the three things that matter most when it comes to impacting people’s lives:
Having a close personal relationship
Showing people you care
Giving them something to respect by setting goals and following through
You don’t have to be a superstar. You don’t have to be wealthy. You don’t have to be well known. You don’t have to be intelligent or successful in the eyes of the world.
To have a significant positive impact on someone, you just have to care about people, be there for them, and show them what living a respectable life looks like by doing whatever you do with excellence.
This study shows us what we all inherently know is true.
Make a quick mental list of the people you have looked up to most in your life. This list usually includes at least one parent or guardian, probably a sibling, maybe an aunt or uncle, definitely your close friends, and maybe a pastor, coach or teacher.
These are impactful relationships. And impact equals influence.
But that’s not how our culture typically thinks of influence. We think that importance equals influence.
Time Magazine has what’s called the Time100, which is a list of the 100 most influential people in the world. This list includes innovators, musicians, actors, athletes, politicians, and other major public figures. It’s a list of important people.
For example, Patrick Mahomes made this list. He’s important because he’s done something that society deems important – he’s an elite athlete.
But whose life will be changed by Patrick Mahomes?
Kids will certainly be inspired by him to strive to achieve more in their own lives, but if you had to place a percentage on it, whose lives will Patrick Mahomes have a major impact on?
It will be his wife, his kids, his close friends, the kids he coaches and mentors on local sports teams – those are the lives that will be impacted by him. Not the countless people who are entertained by him on Sundays.
But here’s the tough part:
We love important work.
It makes us feel good because we long to build things, and today’s culture tells us that what we should be building is something important.
Important work will always fade away. Impactful work – pouring your life into the people closest to you – is what will matter when you’re gone.
Bonnie Ware, a nurse who provided care for dying patients, wrote a book titled, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. These are the top 5 regrets she listed:
“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”
“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
“I wish I had let myself be happier”
These are all relationship-focused regrets.
When we focus on what feels important, we’ll chase things that we think other people will respect us for (the #1 regret) and we’ll de-prioritize margin, rest, emotional health, connection to friends, and happiness (numbers 2-5 on the list).
Harvard’s 80-year study on what makes for a happy life found that, “Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives.”
Maybe that’s why the most common regrets are things that hinder close, real relationships.
Notice what’s not on the list of regrets, though. It doesn’t say, “I wish I had achieved more.”
Stop and acknowledge that.
Deep down, we all know what’s important. And yet we get blinded by what feels important.
Don’t get me wrong, important work needs to be done. We need people doing important work to advance our culture and create a better future for the world. The technological and medical breakthroughs we’ve had allow us to live the lives we enjoy today.
But we have to stop confusing importance for impactful. Don’t get sucked into the allure of important work. Yes, it must be done, but it’s not what matters most.
Focus on impact, first and foremost.
Focus on cultivating the relationships and resources that are closest to us. You’ll often find that important work stems from an impact-first mentality.
Then, in a thousand years, when no one knows your name and your memory is long gone, your legacy will be alive and well, replicating exponentially in the lives of the children’s children’s children of the people you poured your life into impacting.
Growing mass amounts of crops in a short time produces low-quality and often dangerous results.
The reason is because farming (like influence) begins and ends with soil.
You have to be healthy soil before you can produce healthy fruit.
In farming, nutrient-rich topsoil is a product of ground that has been cultivated by the elements of nature through decomposition and soil regeneration for generations, sometimes for thousands of years.
In order to keep the ground from becoming infertile, farmers have to rotate their crops and periodically allow the ground to go unplanted for an extended period of time – typically one to five years to be exact.
If the farmer decides to take a short-term approach by planting in the soil repeatedly every season without allowing it to regenerate, the soil loses its nutrients, becomes infertile, and becomes a more inviting environment for pests.
This leads to the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which, as we’re learning more and more, can cause long-term health issues in those who consume produce from these types of farms.
Do you see the correlation to the human heart?
In the same way fast farming produces bad results, striving to gain influence with large amounts of people in a short time produces low-quality impact and often dangerous results for both the “influencer” and the ones being influenced.
Real change takes time. There are no shortcuts.
And building large followings on digital platforms is a dangerous path for the human soul if the soil of the heart isn’t tended to properly.
Despite what the personal growth culture portrays, it’s the quite, slow, simple path that leads to the most abundant fruit.
Trying to influence people who have vastly different beliefs than you is maddening sometimes.
If you know something – and I mean really know something through experience and research – and you share that information with someone only to get resistance in return…it’s easy to want to throw your hands up and walk away.
I get it. The frustration is, most people operate in ignorance, speaking and acting on very limited facts or perspective.
But when you engage with differing beliefs, there’s something happening beneath the surface that’s much more important than what you’re seeing.
See, it’s been said that people won’t remember what you say, only what you do.
But truthfully, people don’t always forget what you said, they just rarely hear it in the first place.
It’s not because they’re rude. It’s just because we’re all mostly half-there.
We’re busy scrolling, jumping from one thing to the next, and waiting for our turn to talk.
We think we’re listening, but we’re just weeding through the noise.
Presence has become rare. And rare things become valuable.
Think about this:
According to Forbes, 92% of highly engaged employees say they feel heard at work. In companies that outperform others, 88% of employees feel heard – compared to just 62% in companies that don’t.
It turns out that listening isn’t just polite. It’s productive.
One study found that brain development was increased in children who had interactive conversations where they were being listened to by an adult.
Because being heard feels like being seen. And being seen changes people.
The opposite is also true.
Distraction doesn’t just break focus; it erodes connection.
So the question being asked in the head of someone who’s speaking to you isn’t, “Did they hear me?” The question is, “Do they care about me?”
This is the power of listening and engaging in conversations even when it feels like what you’re saying isn’t being heard.
Because listening isn’t passive. It’s sacrificial. It costs you attention, energy, and pride.
Scripture says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)
But listening gives something more valuable in return: trust, clarity, and belonging.
You’re inviting someone into a connection with you by just listening.
I’m not saying you should let misinformation go unchecked. But what I am saying is this…
In a culture filled with opinions, it’s very rare and very valuable to listen even when it feels unproductive.
You don’t have to be brilliant to make someone feel loved. You just have to be fully there.
And appropriately and in time, speak truth. Give them truth in the connection made from listening.
When we’re shouting opinions back and forth, neither are being heard. More importantly, neither feel like the other cares.
And that is an issue worth addressing first before we worry about being right.
Depression has been rising for 20 years. And there’s at least one obvious culprit.
As Andy Andrews says in his book The Noticer, life’s opportunities and encouragement come from relationships.
It seems simple, but it’s a profound truth we’ve forgotten in a digital age.
Relationships bring meaning to life.
An 80-year study conducted by Harvard researchers concluded that, “Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives.”
And if you want better relationships, communication is vital.
Relationships are the product of communication – both verbal and nonverbal.
Today, though, most communication happens digitally.
One survey found that for Millenials and Gen Z, over 70% of daily communications happen digitally rather than in-person.
It’s probably not a stretch to say that your relationships are being built on a digital foundation.
Research is finding more and more that it probably isn’t a good thing.
Here’s what researchers have found about the value of in-person interactions:
Face-to-face relational interactions are connected to lower depressive symptoms and higher life satisfaction
Face-to-face relations are associated with richer relations and stronger social ties than those developed through technology-based engagement
Using text-based communication for complex tasks like negotiating, decision-making, or problem-solving, negatively impacts a person’s interest and performance
It’s pretty clear:
Digital communications are not a good way to build relationships and work together towards shared goals.
Researchers generally agree that nonverbal communication (body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, even physical proximity) plays a significant role in how we process information and how we decide to trust people.
The famous 7/38/55 rule of communication from Albert Mehrabian suggests that as much as 93% of communication is nonverbal (words are 7% of the message, tone of voice is 38%, and body language is 55%).
The human voice also plays a significant role in communicating and connecting.
According to research, “There are linguistic cues that come through someone’s voice that suggest a feeling and thinking mind […] And since connecting with somebody means getting a little closer to their mind, voice-based communication makes that easier or more likely.”
Other studies have also come to the same conclusion – there’s something about hearing a person’s voice that enables us to connect more easily.
When you communicate with someone via text, you’re essentially trying to build a relationship with one hand behind your back and two feet tied together.
And we wonder why our relationships feel like they’re struggling.
It’s vital for our health to prioritize in-person interactions with the people we want to build relationships with.
Your thoughts are almost guaranteed to be at least a little misunderstood through email or text.
Research has shown that emotion cannot be accurately conveyed through email – even if the person you’re sending it to is a friend of yours.
When motives are in question, people typically assume the worst.
Humans are naturally inclined towards criticism, negativity, and catastrophizing.
One study found that as much as 70% of thoughts and internal chatter are negative.
The only way to overcome the human tendency to misunderstand intentions and assume the worst is to use all the communication tools available to you – 90% of which are only available face-to-face.
If you want to build a connection with someone, solve a problem, make a plan, or work through conflict, it’s almost always better face-to-face.
A few important questions to ask for a productive, successful argument:
Will arguing my viewpoint benefit the other person?
Am I too emotional?
Am I too dedicated to my viewpoint?
Am I excited when they say something wrong?
Am I looking for validation?
Am I speaking more than I’m listening?
If the answer to any of these is yes, then your head isn’t ready to argue yet.
Then ask…
Am I empathizing?
Do I know what they value?
Do I know why they’re arguing for what they’re arguing for?
Have I clearly communicated the reason behind my argument?
Am I prepared to compromise?
Am I giving them the benefit of the doubt?
If the answer to any of these is no, then your heart isn’t ready to argue yet.
The truth is always found somewhere between your beliefs and others’. Always. No matter how wrong they seem.
If you prepare your heart and mind for that reality, then arguments become generous acts of back and forth for the sake of a deeper discovery of truth.
We both win.
And man…
Imagine the world we would live in if we approached it that way.
For some reason, we like to connect conflict with failure.
There’s so much conflict online and in the media that it’s become normal to think that all conflict is unhealthy.
What’s interesting, though, is that a growing body of research is finding that healthy conflict is good for development.
Christine Carter, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center says:
“Research shows that learning positive conflict resolution brings loads of benefits to kids, boosting their academic performance and increasing their self-confidence and self-esteem.”
They linked the ability to navigate conflict to increased achievement, higher-level reasoning, and creative problem solving.
In their book Nurture Shock, authors Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman say this about the avoidance of conflict in human development:
“In taking our marital arguments upstairs to avoid exposing the children to strife, we accidentally deprived them of chances to witness how two people who care about each other can work out their differences in a calm and reasoned way.”
Here’s what professionals have found about how to argue well:
The key to growth is better conflict, not less conflict.
And there are a few keys to navigating conflict in a healthy way…
Healthy people argue about resolvable issues, not nebulous complaints.
Concrete issues can be resolved. Character flaws and emotional obscurities cannot.
Researchers say, “Being able to successfully differentiate between issues that need to be resolved versus those that can be laid aside for now may be one of the keys to a long-lasting, happy relationship.”