Jesus warned against making too much noise or drawing attention to oneself. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place” (Luke 14:8-9 ESV). Jesus was a fan of taking the time to build a firm, solid foundation. At age 12, the Holy Bible introduces a Jesus that already had an idea of the things he wanted to do. However, he did not begin any public ministry until 18 years later, at around the age of 30. For 18 years, Jesus grew patiently, in silence, away from the priving eyes of the public.
When you think about the greatest people, companies and organizations of all time, you discover that their overnight success and popularity was decades in the making. Facebook was already the best social media platform for over 10 years, before you even heard about it. Nelson Mandela had been working for decades before he got on the radar of the international community. If you want to rock your world, and administer it for God. You will need to build depth and capacity to operate at that level. It is hard to develop strong roots when you are already in the public eye.
If you want to serve as the salt and light of the world. You should try to get some sense of how long it would take before you can begin to see results. It would be a disaster to approach your 18 year journey (like Jesus) with a 12 months mindset. There is no amount of tantrums that would reduce the knowledge and experience you would acquire within 18 years into a single year. You should ignore the media. Avoid working with short-sighted people who crave success but not willing to commit for the long term. If you want success, commit to growing silently. You don’t need any attention and drama for now.
