The Seduction of Success (part 1)

What is success? How do you know when you’ve achieved it? Will your bank account tell you? Do your career achievements define success? What if you have a good family? What if you’re failing miserably at your career, your family seems dysfunctional, and you don’t have two dimes to rub together? Are you a failure?

I’ve spent my two years in Korea wrestling with God, agonizing over these questions.

For awhile, my life looked like it would be successful. I won a full scholarship to a prestigious college prep school and went on to study at Columbia University, one of the top universities in the United States. I studied Russian, hoping for a career with the State Department. But then, it all fell apart.

I struggled with undefined health problems that no one could diagnose. Was I crazy? Maybe I just didn’t want success enough. It took almost 10 years for me to finally finish my college degree, and when I finally earned it, it didn’t say “Columbia University” on it.

I struggled with my career, never quite finding my niche. I went through a series of bad jobs with difficult bosses, always insecure because I’d never achieved the success that had seemed so tantalizingly close. I worked at a few high powered sales jobs, miserable at the one I was successful at and completely failing at the one I liked.

When I finally started to see some professional success, my husband joined the Army and was sent to Korea. I quit my job to come here, and I agonized.

I was nearing 40, and I had nothing to show for it. My fellow high school students went on to run major companies, took hiking trips to Tibet, and saved the whales in their spare time. What was I? An Army dependent with no identity outside of my husband. No career, no future. I had three great children, but was that it? Was that all there was to life? What would I do when they grew up and left?

I spent countless hours crying out to God. Why am I here, here in Korea and here on earth? Do I matter or am I just a failure?

It’s taken two years (I’m kind of a slow learner!), but I’m beginning to understand. God does not define success the way I do. Success in God’s eyes has nothing to do with money, possessions, career, relationships, or even happiness. I can lose everything and still be a success because God has eternal vision. He sees what’s beyond, not just the here and now.

If I’m caught up in the world’s definition of success, it’s because I’ve forgotten 2 Corinthians 4:18, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

God’s definition of success is very simple, not easy, but simple. “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)

God wants everything. He wants my hopes, dreams, desires, fears, even my very life. If I’m striving to serve him in this way, to lay everything on the altar before him, then I’m a success, no matter what the world says, even if I’m not hiking Tibet or saving whales!