To measure one’s life by one’s impact in the world is to find little else than despair. For what is our work but a torch to light the galaxy, fists to fight the winds of suffering?
Surely there is reason to labor and even to dream, for have you not seen the kingdom? Ah, the kingdom!
But so too is there reason to value our work for the effect it has within us—God forming us into the people we ought to be through the exhaustion, the pain, the failure, the insignificance.
Every monotonous task we perform carves in us a greater longing for the meaningful life of God’s kingdom, every exhausting task the endurance and character necessary to be ready for it, every failure a beautiful reminder that our worth is tied up wholly in God’s love alone, every insignificance or mistreatment an opportunity to feel and fight against the dehumanization of our friends—to grow in love.
Who would we be without the work we have so despised?
Latitudes of Plenty 