What’s the Point? Put Achievement beneath What Matters Most
Winning can be enjoyable without becoming the point of your life. Let work serve your faith and the people you love instead of asking success to carry everything.
#385 — "What's The Point?" - Fulfillment in life transcends fame and fortune and rests in healthy relationships.
Jul 28, 2025
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What are we asking success to do?
Scottie Scheffler raised a question worth hearing before the 2025 Open Championship: what can winning actually give you? Here was someone familiar with success who still knew that another trophy couldn't supply everything a life needs. He also made clear the greater place of his family, saying that a professional career harming those relationships would not deserve to continue unchanged. His remarks were striking because they came from someone already acquainted with the achievements many people imagine would finally make life complete.
A golfer's reflection can start a helpful conversation, but Scripture must give us our direction. The same question reaches far beyond golf: what are we expecting the next achievement to do for us? Yet a person familiar with success can help us question what we expect success to do. We may be pursuing a promotion, a degree, a business milestone, or recognition in a skill. None of those goals must be wrong. The important question is whether we are asking them to become more than achievements: a permanent identity, an answer to loneliness, or a source of peace that can bear the whole weight of life. That expectation deserves examination before the goal consumes everything around it.
Enjoy the achievement without living for it
It's good to finish something difficult and enjoy a job well done. We can thank God for ability, opportunity, and progress without apologizing for working hard or enjoying the result. We can thank God for those good things without pretending they are unimportant. Colossians 3:23–24 calls for wholehearted labor in service to the Lord. Faithfulness doesn't mean indifference to quality or a refusal to pursue excellence. It means doing the work as someone whose life belongs to Jesus. A Christian can work diligently and enjoy a result while recognizing that neither the result nor the applause establishes the full value of the person.
The trouble begins when we ask success to settle every question about our worth. The celebration ends, another goal appears, and we find ourselves promising that the next accomplishment will finally feel like enough. If the achievement was supposed to supply lasting worth, its limits can become a fresh source of dissatisfaction. We may respond by moving the promised fulfillment to a still higher goal: one more award, a larger income, a better reputation. That pattern can continue indefinitely. Ask what the goal can realistically provide and what it cannot. Useful work and genuine enjoyment belong in life, but they become burdensome when assigned the responsibility of becoming its ultimate meaning.
Listen before chasing the next prize
Ecclesiastes 2:1–11 walks through pleasure, possessions, projects, and achievement. The writer has opportunities many people dream about, and he still has to face the limits of what those things can give. He examines what abundant opportunity could actually deliver. The passage gives us reason to question the assumption that enough novelty or achievement will finally make earthly life secure and complete. Human efforts remain subject to time, loss, and the inability to control everything that follows us. Recognizing those limits can guide a more faithful use of good things.
That doesn't require us to call every job, hobby, or achievement meaningless. Good gifts can be enjoyed gratefully. The problem comes when a gift is asked to take the place of God. The lesson is to stop treating the gift as a replacement for the Giver. A job can support responsibilities; a hobby can bring refreshment; an accomplishment can be enjoyed gratefully. None can answer every question about guilt, mortality, or eternal hope. Christians look to Jesus for what those pursuits can't provide. When we stop asking success to save us, we can enjoy it more freely. A good result doesn't have to remove every burden or settle every question before we can be thankful.
Let Jesus decide what comes first
Jesus asks what we gain by winning the world and losing our soul (Mark 8:34–37). That question belongs beside the goal on our calendar, even if our goal looks modest to somebody else. Matthew 6:19–24 similarly directs treasure toward what endures and warns against serving both God and wealth. These teachings give more than a warning about rich people. They address the heart of anyone who lets an earthly pursuit become the master that decides what may be sacrificed. A modest ambition can be spiritually dangerous when its demands repeatedly outrank obedience.
We can name good priorities and still make decisions in the opposite order. Write yours down, then look at what actually happens when work, worship, honesty, and family needs compete for attention. Does a desired advancement require neglecting worship, compromising honesty, or living in constant resentment toward interruptions? Do you justify every sacrifice because the future payoff sounds worthwhile? Some seasons require intense effort, and time alone does not reveal the full value of a responsibility. But the direction should remain clear. Christ governs the pursuit; the pursuit does not receive authority to suspend everything Christ requires until you have finally reached the place you want.
Give the people you love more than a promise
Providing for family is a good reason to work. It can also become an explanation we repeat while the people we're providing for keep receiving less of our attention. Yet the language of provision can also conceal a pattern in which the family continually loses attention while the goal keeps moving. Ephesians 5:25–29 calls husbands to sacrificial care, and the principle of thoughtful love reaches the whole household. Provision includes more than money. It includes patience, presence, reliability, and concern for the actual person. A spouse or child should not become merely the reason named when ambition needs a respectable explanation.
Ask the people you love how the current pattern feels to them. Listen before explaining how hard you work. You may discover a burden that needs shared understanding or a choice that needs to change. There may be a necessary burden that should be understood more clearly, or a choice that needs revision. Christian faithfulness does not guarantee that every household has effortless relationships, and marriage or parenthood is not required for a meaningful Christian life. Whatever your circumstances, however, people matter. Friendship, fellowship, and responsible care should receive attention alongside achievement. Work finds a better place when it helps us care for people instead of using up everything they need from us.
Say what matters and live it
Matthew 10:32–33 calls us to acknowledge Jesus. Our words should make that allegiance clear, and our decisions should support them. A conversation about success can be a good place to speak honestly about Him. Nor should every brief conversation be treated as faithlessness because it does not contain an explicit religious statement. Be ready to speak about the Lord, and give your decisions the same direction as your words. Sometimes a thoughtful discussion about what success can and cannot supply opens space for a deeper conversation. Speak truthfully about the place of Christ rather than assuming another person’s spiritual condition from a single question or response.
You can enjoy work without calling it your savior. You can appreciate success without pretending it supplies everything. Speak naturally about what matters, and let the people listening see those priorities in practice. You can name the relationships and responsibilities you would not rightly sacrifice for greater recognition. Let the explanation be supported by your choices. If every action contradicts the stated priority, the words will have little weight. Humility also prevents using your perspective to belittle someone facing a different burden. A person struggling to meet basic needs needs compassion, not a lecture about how money never matters. Tell the truth with attention to the person listening.
Work hard with your hope in Christ
First Timothy 6:6–19 gives work and resources a better direction through contentment and generosity. We can be thankful for present gifts while still learning, growing, and doing good with what comes next. We don't need to wait until every ambition has been achieved before living well. Contentment can recognize present gifts, fulfill current duties, and remain open to worthwhile growth. Generosity can keep success outward-looking by bringing another person’s need into the use of what we gain. Contentment and generosity help us look beyond ourselves.
Choose one goal that has been occupying your thoughts. What is it serving, and who is paying the cost? Keep the good work, correct what has taken too much, and make room for what you've neglected. Pray for wisdom and make a specific change rather than only admiring the thought that faith and people matter most. The question “What’s the point?” can become constructive when it leads us toward clearer purpose. Work diligently, enjoy good gifts gratefully, and receive success humbly. Keep your deepest hope with Christ, and let Him put the rest in its proper place.
Take the idea with you.
- 01What do you expect the next achievement to give you?
- 02Who needs more of your attention now?
- 03What could change this week so your priorities become visible?
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