Diligence distinguishes.

“Do you see a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings.” (Proverbs 22:29) 

When the threads of time called for the colonies to stand against England, Benjamin Franklin was tapped to serve as a diplomat to France and England. The position placed Franklin in front of many monarchs. 

His appointment was anything but accidental; it was, I submit, an unraveling of the words his father spoke into him as a boy: 

“My father,” wrote Franklin, “having among his instructions to me when a boy frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, ‘Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before Kings.’ … I did not think that I should ever literally stand before Kings, which, however, has since happened.” 

Now, the capital “d” Diligence that put Franklin before kings isn’t just any ordinary type of hard work. It’s the type of courageous persistence that separates one from the masses when, at the moments of peak pessimism and greatest resistance, they refuse to relent while others bow out. 

The type of commitment to calling that caused a diplomat to sign his own death warrant (the Declaration of Independence) to give the great American experiment a chance. 

The type that repeatedly cuts against the current that wants to pull us into the stream of the easy path, beckoning us, like Sirens, to settle. Whispering for us to take the shortcut. 

But Diligence knows the shortcut is a lie. And it calls us to starve the seeds of laziness and lethargy inside. Because there is no elevator or easy path to becoming; Diligence demands a price paid in pounds of discomfort, repetition, sweat, and frustration. 

So if distinguished is what you want to be, Diligence is required. You must be willing to go the distance when the distance is unknown. You must return, for the 10,000th time, to break the rock when the first 9,999 times showed little progress.  

You must consistently do the things that nobody wants to do—lean into what others avoid. Each time you do that, you pass into an elevated place that puts you among the few and rare souls who radiate magically as a reward for mastering the mundane. 

Their Diligence, for all to see, making them fit company for Kings.