A commitment to excellence

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.   Ecclesiastes 9:10

William Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote, “Lives of great men all remind us/We can make our lives sublime,/And, departing, leave behind us/Footprints on the sands of time.” Today, however, most of us are not interested in leaving footprints on the sands of time. We want the easiest and quickest way to success with the least demanding effort.

What motivated the artists, authors and scholars of the past to pursue excellence in their fields? Certainly not fame or fortune, because many of them, if not most, struggled with poverty, surviving on a few crumbs of support from the crown or a wealthy patron. I think that they are compelled to excellence by the thought that God requires our best and to do less is not only a sin against God but also a shame to your family. Some have called it the old Protestant work ethic, something that became gospel to the Puritans and Calvinists. But it was this discipline that drove art, education, and literature for centuries.

As Paul put it: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23).

Are you content with getting by or are you determined to do your best, whether you drive a bus, head a corporation, teach school or dig weeds and mow lawns?

Longfellow concluded his “A Psalm of Life,” saying, “Let us, then, be up and doing,/With a heart for any fate;/Still achieving, still pursuing,/learn to labor and to wait.” Unless you do your best, you will never know what you might have accomplished.