Success

Recently during a sermon our Pastor said something like ‘success is not always good for you’. You really have to stop and think about that for a while. This gave me pause and I have been dwelling on that for a bit. I was always one striving for my next best whatever...car, job, victory and I think I can really relate to what he was saying. 

I was reading Tim Keller’s commentary on Judges and in it he says, “Success can easily cause us to forget God’s grace, because our hearts are desperate to believe we can save ourselves.” I find that to be so true and part of our culture.  

The American way is to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, to compete, to win at all costs. So to me, it is very easy to think we have done it all ourselves, but when we really stop, when we are really thinking clearly we know that we have in many cases done it despite ourselves. 

Now there is certainly nothing wrong with striving for more and better things, to be good, even great at things, but it needs to be accompanied by perspective. It needs to be grounded in a faith that everything under the sun is Gods; created, supplied, granted, given by God. And as long as that is our perspective and we achieve with thankful and humble hearts, then achieve away. 

Keller concluded by saying, “We need to remember that we are saved by grace when we fail. But we need to remember it much more when we succeed. 

2 Chronicles 26:5

He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the LORD, God gave him success. 

Father, thank you for saving us by your amazing grace; may we seek you all of our days and may we see that as true success! 

Grace and Peace!