One of Jesus’ most well known warnings comes in Matthew 16:26. Though asked in the form of a question, its implications are confronting and clear: “what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” The immediate context frames Jesus’ question within his exhortation to self-sacrificial service (Matthew 16:24). Paradoxically, Jesus insists that giving up one’s life for his sake is the surest path to not losing it (Matthew 16:25). To drive his point home, as Leon Morris puts it, Jesus insists that nothing gained in the world compensates for the loss of one’s soul. “One’s life,” writes Morris, “is in a different world.” There’s much for us to meditate on here, but something I recently turned over with my students is that no worldly accomplishments—no theological excellence, acumen or achievements—give the soul its worth.

In principle we know this. However, in practice all of us pursue greater worth through our efforts and the recognition they bring. I’ve found few better illustrations of this pursuit than Helen Macdonald’s reflection on the life and work of T. H. White, in her award-winning memoir, H Is for Hawk.

The Pursuit of Worth and Love

By his own admission, T. H. White was a lonely man. He was desperate for love and acceptance. Yet despite his evident brilliance and success in writing, White forever felt like an outsider—that he didn’t belong. So, in a somewhat bemusing step, White took up falconry. Relying on Macdonald here, White’s decision was in part motivated by his search for an identity and belonging. In modern parlance we might say that he believed that through falconry he could become ‘one of the boys,’ which albeit strange is probably still a healthier vision of masculinity than those we encounter on YouTube today. Anyway, White sought acceptance through mastery; recognition by way of accomplishment.

Macdonald quotes a line from his book, The Goshawk, that reveals that aching angst. White writes, “Need to excel in order to be loved.” We might paraphrase that as, need to work harder in order to be accepted. When I succeed I’ll finally hear that I’m enough. Then I’ll be loved, invited in. Those aren’t only White’s thoughts; they’re yours and mine too. All of us imagine that by eventually excelling at something we’ll be loved.

The Despair at Being Successful and Unloved

Considering this universal yearning, Macdonald asks the question that haunts our aspirations and ambitions. She identifies the lurking fear we’re so palpably familiar with: “What happens,” she asks, “if you excel at something and discover you are still unloved?” Put another way, how do we cope when some great personal gain doesn’t satisfy our longing. What do we do when success doesn’t deliver the love or recognition we’re all so desperate to know?

Far from merely raising the question, Macdonald lays bare a truth we deliberately ignore, sometimes flatly deny: excellence won’t make us more loved. Respected, maybe. Appreciated, possibly. Adored, rarely. Loved? Never. Yet all of us limp along that path—what Jim Carrey called the “terrible search”—deceiving ourselves into believing that we’ll eventually earn the love we crave; that it’s waiting for us around the next proverbial corner, arriving with our next impressive achievement or accolade.

So what do you do when excellence isn’t enough? When success is lonely? When your ambition grants you everything but love? How do you carry on when you finally admit that you can earn most things apart from love?

The Gospel Answers Our Longings and Fears

In anticipation of academic audits, I insisted that theological studies are something worth excelling at. The same could be said about many things, though not everything. The solution isn’t indifference. Mediocrity. Half-heartedly sauntering through life without any ambitions. But this article isn’t for people tempted in those ways. It’s for the achievers; it’s for those who’ve ascended and overcome only to discover that their search didn’t end—as Nietzsche would say, from the peak one always spies another, further off and higher up. As Jim Carrey puts it in the speech already quoted, all of us know that the desperate search won’t end in fulfilment. We’ll never feel like we’re enough. We’ll never be know that love.

As I said in the classroom, good theology knows that no amount of excellence earns love. Christian theology doesn’t make our identity or belonging contingent on performance. It isn’t about our striving or effort, however impressive. The best theology, owing to the fact that it’s what we discover in the Bible, proceeds from belonging. In Dane Ortlund’s words, “The gospel is the invitation to let the heart of Christ calm us into joy, for we’ve already been discovered, included, brought in.”

God’s grace in the gospel answers White’s longings and addresses our pervasive fears. It reminds us that in our pursuit of excellence, and regardless of what we achieve, we are already loved.