I just realized that I have my 20 year high school reunion coming up. I can't believe it has been 20 years. When thinking of meeting with those who trekked through the confusion that was High School, I admit, I think about what people will think of what I have become. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy with my life. I have a beautiful wife, with wonderful kids, a home, and I am doing what I love to do. Yet, there it is...that feeling that I might not be seen as successful by others. It leads me to the deeper question; what is success? 

I live in a society that is driven by the desire for success. As an American, it seems like many times our worth is defined by how successful we are. How well we have done for ourselves in business, education, or personal notoriety. When meeting people for the first time one of the first things asked in conversation is "What do you do for a living?" This might seem normal, as if we just desire to know about the other person, but behind it is the obvious inquiry, "how successful are you?" 

Most of the time in this society the success we are taught to seek is defined by possessions, money, or maybe power and prestige. Have we climbed the corporate ladder? Do we live in that respectable house filled with nice things. What car do we drive? Who do we know? Or who knows us? Wether it be our salary, our homes, our positions...the definition of success seems to be all focused around what we have done for ourselves. The problem is, when we gauge our success by what we have accomplished, when are we actually successful? When can we be happy with where we are and who we are? 

I think the story Jesus in the New Testament tells us a radically different way of defining success. Success is achieved more from losing than gaining. This seems ridiculous at first when placed next to the idea that the more we do for ourselves the more successful our lives will be. But there it is, a clear message that true life (successful life) is only gained through giving up all that we have. Jesus said with his own words, "whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." (Luke 9:24) 

Real success is not measured by possessions but by a personal relationship with the one who reveals and releases true human living in us and through us. Real success is not in our list of accomplishments, but our lives lived in sacrifice that accomplishes all things good in this world. Real success is not in power and prestige but walking humbly with Jesus, whose ministry was one of serving, even to the cross. Real success is not in the stock pile of money we have accumulating, but in surrendering our lives to be used by God however he sees fit, even if it calls us to give up everything that the world will define our success by. 

What definition of success are we living by? 

I am a closed off person. I admit it. My tendencies are to keep the deepest parts of me to myself. It is hard for me to share the dark and the ugly of who I am. I have spent many hours reflecting on why this is. Is it because I am introverted and just don't share well? I don't think so, for I am a person who has no problem talking to others. Is it because I am prideful? This is possible, because I fear what people will think of me if they knew. Yet, although pride is a good starting point for understanding where this tendency comes from, it points to something deeper. It shows a fight that I have to accept that I am a broken person. 

Brokenness is not easy to admit. Not many of us like to admit that we are fundamentally flawed. We like to talk ourselves into believing that we can fix ourselves, or that "we aren't that bad". We paint over our problems, struggles, habits, addictions, as if they normative and the way it is supposed to be as humans. In talking to others, when we do exert the courage needed, we many times are confronted with the response, "that is just what it means to be a man/woman/human," as if the broken parts of us are not really broken, but the way we were made. 

We know better than this though. Deep down we know this isn't true. Deep down we feel that there should be more than living in our struggles. Our ears perk at the faint whispers of the possibility of victory. However, as paradoxical as it seems, the first step towards that victory is admitting we are utterly broken and need the unbroken one. 

A.W. Tozer reminds us that "Deliverance can come to us only by the defeat of our old life. Safety and peace come only after we have been forced to our knees. God rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance." We don't usually like our strength shattered. We tend to live lives in ways to protect ourselves from this. Our life actions show that our priorities are to become stronger, more qualified, financially insulated, self sufficient beings that are protected from being "shattered" or "wiped out". 

Yet Jesus reminds us that "Blessed are the poor in spirit..", or those that recognize their utter helplessness/brokenness/neediness. Lord help me to be truthful to you and others, that apart from you I am a mess....and let us all see that in our weakness, your strength comes through. 

 

 

 

 

 

Struggle.

 

Great strength is brought with pain, 
From out the strife, 
From out the storms that sweep 
The human soul^___ 
Those hidden tempests 
Of the inner life^___ 
Comes forth the lofty calm 
Of self-control. 
  
Peace after war. Although 
The heart may be trampled 
And plowed like a torn battle field, 
Rich are the fruits that follow victory, 
And the battle grounds 
The fullest harvests yield. 
  
Strong grows his arm who breasts 
A downward stream, 
And stems with steady stroke; 
The mighty tide 
Of his own passions. Sore 
The wrench may seem, 
But only he is strong 
Whose strength is tried. 
  
To toil is hard, to lay 
Aside the oar, 
To softly rise and fall 
With passion's swell, 
Is easier far. But when 
The dream is o'er 
The bitterness of waking 
None can tell. 
  
To float at ease, by sleepy 
Zephyrs fanned, 
Is but to grow more feeble 
Day by day; 
While slips life's little hour 
Out, sand by sand, 
And strength and hope together 
Waste away. 
  
He only wins who sets 
His thews of steele 
With tighter tensions for 
The prick of pain; 
Who wearies, yet stands fast; 
Whose patient zeal 
Welcomes the present loss 
For future gain. 
  
Toil before ease; the cross, 
Before the crown. 
Who covets rest, he first 
Must earn the boom. 
He who at night in peace 
Would lay him down, 
Must bear his load amid 
The heats of noon.

^__Ellen P. Allerton.