Working in Los Angeles County can be hazardous to one’s health. I’m not talking about the high-speed freeways or the frantic pace of life, but rather the cultural atmosphere that insists on glorifying “self.”

Here in the entertainment capital of the world, we are obsessed with beauty, success, and fame, and we can sometimes forget that Jesus didn’t call us to build our own name but to glorify His.

It’s human nature to assert and exalt self, and indeed each of us carries an innate longing for significance; however, the biblical pathway for a significant life is found in giving one’s life away. Jesus said, “Whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25b). This doesn’t mean that we are relegated to lives of obscure insignificance—quite the reverse. It means that no matter how broad our influence or our audience becomes the motivation of our life is ever geared toward pleasing God and serving people.

In the classic Christian book Hinds Feet on High Places the water droplets in the waterfall sang a unique song that revealed the extreme delight that they had discovered as they rushed downward from the heights toward the waiting villagers below. They sang, “From the heights we leap and flow, to the valleys down below.”

The song of the water droplets is our mantra too. We don’t exist to build monuments to self but to descend with delight in service to the Lord. As we increasingly embrace this serving, giving life we discover that we are closer than ever to living the life we have always dreamed of. When we partner with Jesus in loving and serving the world, His love begins to permeate our soul and it leads us into the discovery of “the life that is truly life” (1 Timothy 6:19).