Towering achievements are not the only way we are judged in our lives

IN “normal” times today (May Day) would have been greeted in Oxford with singing from the top of Magdalen College Tower. For the second year, because of the current restrictions, there will be no rooftop choir and the event will take place online.

Seventy years ago today, it was a tower of a very different kind that was in the news. The Empire State Building opened on this day in 1931. Standing 381 metres high it was, then, the tallest building in the world. It is such a familiar feature of the New York skyline that many of us feel we know the building even if we have never visited it.

Time has moved on and, with the world’s tallest building now standing at 828 metres (the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai), the Empire State is now only 49th in the list of highest buildings. At some point technology and expertise will mean that even this record is broken.

There is something about human nature that drives us to be the fastest or the greatest; there is a sense of achievement in creating the biggest, tallest or even most unusual. The sale of the Guinness Book of Records every year is evidence of our fascination with what is the longest, smallest, widest – and so the list goes on. Now known as “Guinness World Records” it is estimated that this annual publication has sold over one hundred million copies in one hundred countries and thirty-seven languages since it first appeared in 1955.

In moments of reflection, wondering what I should aspire to, I know it is unlikely that I shall ever appear in such a book.

Then I recall the words of an Old Testament prophet, Micah, who asked himself and the people he addressed what God wanted of their lives. His conclusion was simply this: that we act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with the One who created us.

When the Bible encourages us to be ambitious it is to these things we should aspire. Such a life will not necessarily bring us medals or see our name in the record books.

We are told, however, that at the end of our lives we will be welcomed into eternity with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant”.