“Success is the continuing achievement of becoming the person God wants you
to be and accomplishing the goals God has helped you set.” -Charles Stanley
What image comes to mind when you think about success? Perhaps it is the image of climber finally reaching the top of the mountain. Maybe it is the awards ceremony at the end of an Olympic event with the winners proudly displaying their medals with arms stretched into the air. It might even be the image of a new college graduate in cap and gown holding the diploma they worked so hard to obtain. We all have different ideas of what success may look like, but to be sure, we all have our ideas.
We are taught from a very young age that success is something tangible; an award, a position a solid bottom line or the recognition of others. Success is something that we can see, touch and experience. So we live our lives in pursuit of this kind of success and judge everything in our lives according to these standards.
The problem with this however is that life is messy and does not typically fit into our understanding of how things should be. We do our best and work as hard as we can but since what we are doing cannot be measured as “successful” we feel like we have failed. Or are failing. And so we quit. We conclude that we can never achieve the same level of success as someone else so we will simply try to just get by without too much pain.
Have you ever felt this way?
As a parent?
As a spouse?
In your career?
As a Christian?
I think that it is safe to say that in at least one area of our lives we have all felt this way. Which is why I love the definition of success found at the top of this page. Read it again and let it sink in.
Success is not truly a goal to be obtained. It is not a title, or award, or the recognition of others. It is not money, or houses or the newest technology. Success is living each day to your God-given potential.
We all fail and make mistakes. We will all have days, or weeks or even months where we feel like we are going the wrong direction and may not make it. We evaluate our lives and conclude that we are anything but successful.
We need to change the way that we determine success. Live each day to be the person that you were created to be and move one step closer to the things that you have always dreamed you would accomplish. Fall down and fail, but get back up and continue moving forward.
Success is the continuing achievement of becoming the person that God wants you to be. This means that you will never truly arrive but that you can experience one step on the path of success today.
Decide today that you will embrace success one step at a time and become the person that you were created to be!
What are some definitions of success that we commonly hear?
How does realizing that success is simply growing into the person that you were created to be change your perspective?