Question:
What is your personal definition of "success"? "Finding fulfillment, freedom, quality of time with loved ones and a sense of well being" are common phrases in personal defintions of success. What is yours? Is there a definition for success, or is everyone’s different?
My Reply:
I'd like to hand this one over to my wife. After a Bible study together on Joshua 1, she posted our findings on the meaning of success, and I'd like to share my answer with you, in her words:
Who doesn't want to be successful?
The world gives us different ways on how we can be successful. There are even tons of self-help books available to guide us. But everything is all about self-empowerment. Perhaps you've been told to "work hard", "focus on your dream" or "be passionate about what you're doing" and you will be "successful". But even with all these guides, our quest for real success ends up meaningless, and success seems to be something too far to obtain.
The truth is, God has already revealed to us the secret to become successful:"Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."
Joshua, Moses' successor, had the BIG task of leading the Israelites into the Promised Land. But even with such a big task, God encouraged and gave Joshua a foolproof way to become successful: "meditate (on the Book of the Law) day and night so that (he) may be careful to do all that are written in it."
Have you been trying hard to be successful in life? What are some of the ways that you've been told to accomplish this goal? Though there are tons of self-help books available to guide us, they all talk of "self-empowerment". Perhaps it's time to make a paradigm shift, and view success not around yourself, but around God. For God says that then, and only then, will you truly come to know what it really means to be "successful".
"Amen"
---Pastor Andy
