George Barnard Shaw said, “There are two sources of unhappiness in life. One is not getting what you want; the other is getting it.”
America is obsessed with success. We work hard to get what we want. From the early days of our youth, competing is encouraged to reach number one, whether it’s winning the spelling bee or ranking at the top of our class. Setting our minds on a goal and pressing until we reach that goal makes us a success, we think. Success is a destination.
Or, in our consumer-minded society, we think success is accumulation. He who has the most and best toys wins. We kill ourselves to make six figures, to climb the ladder to more power and influence, and to accumulate more than the next guy.
John Maxwell in “The Success Journey” shared that while thumbing through Success magazine several years ago, he saw a Gallup study on what people thought success looked like. Their answers fell into 12 categories, but the number one answer was good health. Fifty-eight percent identified good health with success over anything else. Good health is desirable, but is good health the ultimate measurement of success? (Maxwell, “The Success Journey,” page 1).
Three businessmen were comparing their thoughts on what it meant to be successful. “I’d say I had arrived,” said the first, “if I were summoned to the White House for a private, personal meeting with the president of the United States.”
“To me,” said the second man, “success would mean meeting with the president in the Oval Office, having the hotline ring during our talk, and watching the president ignore it.”
The third said, “I think you’re a success if you’re privately consulting with the president, the hotline rings, he picks it up, and says, ‘It’s for you.’”
How do you define success? How does God define success? The Bible defines success…
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