SUCCESS DEFINED

By Bishop Vashti McKenzie


Success tends to defy a simple definition. It can mean the ability to achieve what you desire to achieve. It can mean making things work out for the best in spite of the opposition. It can mean to do well doing most things, do well at everything, or do the right things well.

Ross Perot once said that success is being the best at whatever you do. Andrew Carnegie believed the definition of success is not how much you get, but how much you give away. Marva Collins says that success doesn't come to you...you go to it. Benjamin Disraeli notes that the secret of success is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

Our humanity often defines success in terms of power, prestige, acquisition, achievements, wealth, or security on many levels including financial, physical or emotional. Success is often measured by money - how much or how little. However, money can build bombs, and it can build schools. It can buy a house, but it cannot make a home. It can purchase a bed, but it cannot guarantee rest. Thus, success defined only in tangible terms goes wanting; while Jesus says lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.

God's ways are not our ways. God looks beyond external distinctions and uniqueness, and goes straight to the heart. If we commit our ways to the Lord, trusting Him every step of the way, God will bring it to past. If we seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, the things we are looking for will be added unto us after all God gives according to writer in Deuteronomy, give us the ability to create wealth.

Peter Gomes writes in The Good Life that success is not surmounting tribulation of all times; it is the capacity to better cope with tribulation as its strategies increase in proportion to our strength. He says the secret lies not in depending upon our strength, but on the strength of God.

Joseph was in such as position. Sibling rivalry interrupted family life. He was sold into slavery and made a life for himself in Potipher's house. He was falsely accused of sexual advancement toward Potipher's wife and sent to Pharaoh's prison. The jailer put all the prisoners under Joseph's oversight. All matters are under his influence, and the Lord caused everything he did to succeed.

There was no accumulation of a massive amount of wealth. There were no mansions, Bentleys, swimming pools, stock options or slush funds. Yet, the Lord was with Joseph. Success then was not what you get for yourself, notes Gomes. Success appears to be blooming where you are planted, as the lily of the fields.

Success demands a complex definition -- one that goes beyond the tangible to the intangible and beyond the secular to the sacred. Keep in mind, it was the Lord that caused Joseph to be successful in whatever he did.

Scripture Of The Day: "Wisdom brings success." - Ecclesiastes 10:10

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