Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego‘s in bloom;
Sometime when you take it for granted,
You’re the best qualified in the room:
Sometime when you feel that your going,
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions,
And see how they humble your soul.

Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining,
Is a measure of how much you’ll be missed.
You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop, and you’ll find that in no time,
It looks quite the same as before.

The moral of this quaint example,
Is to do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There’s no indispensable man.

“The Indispensable Man,” by Saxon White Kessinger

At work or in life, it is easy to think, “There’s no way we can survive without ‘So-and-so’!” Yet every time, “So-and-so” leaves or gets a new job or passes away, we continue on. It’s certainly not the same, but things don’t grind to a halt, either.

Even major companies survive when their founders leave. Walt Disney hadn’t opened Walt Disney World when he died in 1966. When Sam Walton died in 1992, Walmart was just starting to open Supercenters across the US that are now the model for their stores. And when Ole Kirk Christiansen died in 1958, LEGO was still making wooden toys and was just starting to manufacture plastic interlocking bricks.

Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 2:18-20: I hated all my work that I labored at under the sun because I must leave it to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will take over all my work that I labored at skillfully under the sun. This too is futile. So I began to give myself over to despair concerning all my work that I had labored at under the sun.

We may think we’re the key to a project or a team’s success. But we are just there for a time, and then someone else picks up the work and moves on. We are challenged to do the best we can to the glory of God and pray that our successors will do the same.

By Jason Grace

Jason is a software engineering manager. He and his wife, Karen, have two children and have been active members at Immanuel for over 23 years. His service includes roles in the deacon ministry, children's ministry, technical team, financial coaching, and leading Bible studies. He loves traveling with his wife and family throughout the US.