While most people are chasing the idea of being “successful,” what if we got the definition of success wrong? What if we don’t even know what success really is? Which would mean we’ve been seeking the wrong thing.
I’ve been guilty of seeking the rewards of success more than real success. Problems arise when we get the two mixed up.
The Rewards of Success
Getting the promotion, the pay raise, the corner office, the big house, the early retirement, the trophy, fame, scholarship, etc.—those are rewards of success.
The problem comes if you don’t believe success has arrived until you experience the rewards of success. Then that leads to burn out, a dog-eat-dog mentality, climbing the ladder at all costs, self-promotion, and exhaustion.
Real Success
Success is not getting the pay raise or promotion. Success is being the type of employee day-in and day-out, arriving on time, working hard, and enhancing the company. Whether you get the promotion or not, you are successful.
Success is not getting the joy of having a genuine, trusting relationship with your adult children. That’s simply the reward of success. Success is being the type of parent that showed them devotion to the Lord, taught them how to pray, made yourself available to them, prayed for them, and showed that you had their best interests in mind. Whether or not you get to have that mature relationship with your adult children does not make you successful or unsuccessful. You were being successful when you made time to sit around the dinner table with your kids for the first 18 years of their life. That’s success.
“Success is being the type of parent that showed them devotion to the Lord, taught them how to pray, made yourself available to them, praying for them and showing you have their best interests in mind.”
Defining Success
Defining success may be one of the most important things you could do. It will alleviate uncontrolled pressure. Here’s my definition:
Success is remaining faithful to the process even when it makes no sense to remain faithful to the process.
It made no sense for Abraham to walk his son Isaac up that mountain and sacrifice him on the altar. But Abraham remained faithful to the process even when, quite frankly, it was crazy! That’s being successful.
- Success is going to church even when you think you could use a Sunday off.
- Success is spending time in His Word even when you’re tired.
- Success is praying with your kids even though you haven’t seen any tangible results lately.
- Success is forgiving even when you see no benefit for you to do so.
- Success is being a trusted employee even when you don’t think the boss will see it.
Success is remaining faithful to the process even when it makes no sense to remain faithful to the process.
“Success is praying with your kids even though you haven’t seen any tangible results lately.”
The Timing of Rewards
If you are spiritually successful, the rewards of success will follow. However, we have no promise from God when exactly those rewards will come. For some, they don’t come until we breathe our last here.
The first 35 verses of Hebrews 11 gives us a list of spiritual successes. “By faith, Abel . . . By faith, Enoch . . . By faith, Abraham . . . By faith, Noah . . . By faith, Moses . . .” On and on it goes.
We know Hebrews 11! Well, we know the first 35 verses of Hebrews 11, because those are a list of people who saw their rewards in tangible ways on earth. But Hebrews 11 doesn’t end with verse 35. Continuing on, another group of spiritual successes are mentioned, and we don’t know this part of the chapter as well.
“There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.” (Hebrews 11:35b-38, NIV)
“Hebrews 11 doesn’t end with verse 35.”
Whoa. What are we supposed to do with that passage? I really don’t know. But what I do know is that those people were listed in the same chapter as those other spiritual successes. Actually, the writer says they were so successful spiritually the world was not worthy of them.
Amen and amen.
Be assured they all got rewarded. It just came later.
May we not be confused by the rewards of success and real success.
