Make Your Mark

In high school, I was particularly obsessed with the idea of “making an impact” on the world. 

I thought that by joining several clubs, applying for numerous honor societies, and getting a perfect GPA in the school’s most challenging classes would be the way in which I could leave my mark. My life focused on chasing after success, and the longer my resume became, the more I began to build my identity on my achievements. What I didn’t understand, however, is how little a difference my personal accomplishments would make in others’ lives. 

Maya Angelou put it best: “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”

The more people I encountered in my life, the more I realized the truth of this statement. We often subconsciously associate emotions with people based on our past interactions and experiences with them. And these emotions can dominate all memories we have of a person, no matter what they’ve done or said to us in the past. 

For example, there is a certain friend God has blessed me with who brings me so much joy in my life. This friend never fails to show me how much she loves me, cares for me, and values me. She is intentional about her time with me, quick to encourage me, and always willing to engage in deep spiritual conversations about what the Lord is doing in our lives. The Lord’s work is so clearly evident in her life; the light of Jesus inside her shines brightly everywhere she goes. 

This friend and I have not always gotten along perfectly; in fact, there was a time when our friendship went through an extremely rough patch. 

But because of the love she treats me with, I don’t remember her by the things we said or did during that time. The joy that I feel when thinking about this friend overpowers my memories of her. And now, whenever I remember my friend, I feel so incredibly blessed that God chose to put this person in my life.

“The memory of the righteous is a blessing,” says Proverbs 10:7, “but the name of the wicked will rot.”

Along with the righteous people who leave us feeling blessed, there will also inevitably be people in our lives who treat us wickedly. They may hurt us, insult us, or make us feel worthless, unknowingly associating themselves with the negative feelings they instill in us. And the thing about these people, is that no matter how much they accomplish, no matter how much of a name the make for themselves, they will not be primarily remembered for their achievements — all memories of them will be corrupted by the wickedness with which they treated others, and their name will rot.

Just as we have emotions attached to the people in our lives, the people we interact with have emotions associated with us based on how we make them feel. 

Whether we like it or not, we all are making an impact on the world, namely through the people we interact with. And whether we like it or not, the extent of our successes or our social status or our contributions to society will one day be forgotten, along with our name. 

But what people won’t forget is the feeling we leave them with. 

As Christians, God has given us each each a light inside of our hearts. This light is “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” or the faith in Jesus that rescued us from the death punishment for our sins. We are living in a world of darkness, a world of sin, a world that is unaware of the life that a relationship with the Lord brings. And in this darkness, God calls us to let our lights shine (2 Corinthians 4:6). 

We shine our lights whenever we treat people with righteousness and love just as Jesus did while on earth instead of with the wickedness that is so common and prevalent in this world. And this, according to Jesus, is how people will distinguish us as one of His followers (John 13:35). God can use these interactions to attract people to the faith that ignites the light inside our hearts, and even bring them to Himself as children of God. 

People won’t forget the feeling we leave them with, and we have the choice to treat people with the love that Jesus calls us to and to enable their memories of us to be filled with the light of Jesus. By treating people in a way that makes them feel blessed, God can use the light He’s placed inside us to leave people not only with positive feelings about us, but a faith that is eternal and will never be forgotten.