Follow Jesus Christ

Modern life often feels like one long exam. Not a school exam or a professional test, but a life exam. Every day you have to reaffirm your right to your place. You have to show results. You have to prove you’re not occupying space in vain, that you earn money, that you have a voice. The exam runs with no schedule and no end date, yet the sense of being judged never leaves you for a minute. “If I stop, I’ll be thrown to the curb.” “If I don’t produce results, I’ll be judged a failure.”

This race takes many forms. Some people build careers and live in constant productivity mode. They take on more tasks, answer faster, fear stopping because a pause feels like defeat. Some cultivate a public persona, count reactions and “likes,” wait for feedback, and grow uneasy in the silence. Some cling to status and compare themselves to others because that’s how they know they’re still “on the level.” What model and year is my car? What kind of house do I have? What job? Do I go to tropical islands every year just so I can post photos on social media? In all these cases the same formula works: I am what I have achieved.

Sometimes effort is rewarded. A person receives recognition, a promotion, applause. It feels good. It creates the sense that the exam has been passed, at least for today. But the applause dies down quickly and a frightening silence returns, as if invisible examiners are looking at you reproachfully. The need for a new proof arises. A new result becomes mandatory. The exam goes on because it has no finale.

Jesus directly opposes this logic when he says, “Life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions.” He points to a fundamental substitution: people confuse the value of life with its external confirmation. The exam feels necessary because, without evaluation, a person fears disappearing. They feel that without society’s opinion they mean nothing; they become slaves to the mass psychology of success—“be like all the successful people.” People chase success and try to make it public.

Elsewhere Jesus asks a question that breaks the mechanism of the race: “Which of you by worrying can add a single cubit to his stature?” He does not ridicule effort. He reveals its limit. Straining does not give control over life. The exam does not make a person secure; it only keeps them anxious. There are many things in life that cannot be solved by worry or sheer effort. Money can perhaps be earned, but can you get rid of a hereditary chronic disease?

The logic of achievement collapses especially when a result becomes impossible. Illness, age, crisis, dismissal—none of these fit into a system of proofs. It is precisely here that Jesus’ words about trust stop sounding abstract. “Look at the birds of the air…” is not a call to passivity but a reminder that life is sustained not only by effort but also by what lies beyond our control. Life is more than the human theater of achievement and superiority.

There is another place where Jesus radically shifts the center of identity: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose their soul?” He is not speaking simply about morality or sin. He is speaking about cost. You can win the race, get the applause, pass all the exams—and at the same time lose the ability to live without constant proof. Lose the joy of being, violate the laws of conscience for the sake of success and prosperity. That can end in disaster.

So Jesus repeatedly brings people back to another foundation. “Whoever is faithful with little is faithful also with much.” It’s not about scale or impression. It’s about a way of being. The exam loses its power when value ceases to depend on the volume of applause. In Jesus’ logic a person does not stop acting; they stop proving. Their work no longer serves as a justification for existence but becomes an expression of a life that already has value. The exam doesn’t end with a victory because it simply ceases to be the main thing.

Applause may sound or fade. The exam may continue for the world. But the person no longer lives inside that logic. They act responsibly and freely because the center of their life has shifted to the spiritual plane. Stop the race of self-assertion in society. You can live and act without proving to anyone your right to exist. You are valuable simply because you are.