Bestlife: 5 Days of Inspiration to Live Your Best LifeSample

Be the Best You Can Be

The last will be first, and the first will be last.

—Matthew 20:16

Getting up at 4:00 a.m. on a vacation is not normal. If you asked my wife, she might say something even less charitable. But we rose early that day for a special reason: we wanted to be the first people in America to see the sunrise that day.

At 1,530 feet, Cadillac Mountain in Maine’s Acadia National Park is the highest point on the Atlantic Seaboard. Combined with being one of the easternmost points in America, it is the first place to see the sunrise in this country. We drove up early that morning to be the first people in the country to see the sunrise.

However, when we arrived at the top of the mountain, we could barely find a parking spot. During the next forty-five minutes, we would watch hundreds more people pour onto the granite summit. I was not going to be first, but I would be one of hundreds that day who would see the sunrise in America before most others. It put me in some pretty rare company, but it wasn’t first.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be first; someone has to be. Greatness is a worthy goal to pursue. When Jesus said in Matthew 20:16 (niv), The last will be first, and the first will be last, He wasn’t criticizing the desire to be first. He was teaching us about having a servanthood attitude. Jesus doesn’t want us to act superior to others; He wants us to serve others. You can be the best and still not act like you’re better than everyone else.

The reality is that we cannot all be first. Only one person can be first. We can’t all be the best; otherwise “best” doesn’t mean anything. What each of us can pursue is to be the best we can be. We can take the talents, gifts, and opportunities God places in our lives and do all we can to be our best.

The key is to pursue impact over outcome—because you can control impact, but you cannot control results. You can control impact because it is about doing the best you can with your resources. Outcomes are different because there are so many things beyond our control. We can do everything right, but others can mess it up; that is the unpredictability of outcome.

Sometimes the results just don’t show the whole story. However, the impact will. You may not be acknowledged as the best or receive the first-place prize, but as long as you keep trying to be the best you can be, you will be first in what matters most.