Defining Your Success: Part One

As children, we are groomed to want success. By looking at performers, athletes, actors, and other celebrities, we measure ourselves by what they have. If they have what we don’t, we strive to find a way to achieve that and more. Though the act of striving for this success is healthy, many find unhealthy ways to achieve it. Women throw themselves at men who are financially successful, hoping to land a meal ticket for the moment. Trying to have children with them so they can be taken care of financially. Men sell their souls by doing whatever they can to compete with another man. What if we lived in a world where we didn’t compete? What if we simply lived our lives according to the way we wanted and not based on what everyone else was doing? How would life be then?

Amazingly enough, through this world, there are groups of people who don’t look out into the world for their happiness! They look up and within instead! If you are one of those people you already understand what I mean; this is not for you then. 

This is for those that can’t help but flip through Instagram and Facebook, looking at what other people are flaunting, wondering how they can be like the person before them. I’m here to tell you that no one person is the same. No one person has the same journey, the same success. Though we are groomed from birth with one definition of success, we have to grow to learn that everyone will have a different type of success.

I tell you; look through Instagram one more time at the people that you’ve found yourself to envy. Whether it be your best friend or a celebrity that you’ve never met. Now sit and think. Just think about the sacrifices these people are making in order to be where they are now. That friend that is smiling in her photo, showing off the luxury she’s living in; think about this one thing: is she happy? What does she have to go through every day, constantly to get this “happiness” that she shows in her photos? Remembering conversations that you’ve had, you’ll realize that she’s not happy at all! She’s not being appreciated, she being lied to, cheated on, etc. 

Now look at yourself. Tell me…is it worth it? 

Now look at the celebrity that you idolize. The fun that they seem to be having in their photos. They are constantly drinking, partying, doing drugs, because they were told that is what you should do in order to stay relevant and be noticed (just like everyone else). Look further into their life and you’ll find that they are unhappy, that’s why they spend the insane amounts of money they do in order to try to fill the void that is within them. How can someone who has a lifestyle like that truly have any real friends? Having people constantly around them wanting something from them? Always standing there with their hand out. It could make a person unhappy and seem alone.

But there are a group of people that don’t have to worry about being alone, because they never are alone. There are those that have someone around them, watching and protecting them through the good and the bad. That someone, my friends, is God. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 13:5-6 to "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?'"

Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, thank you for this first part of defining our own success. We are learning that it is within you that we find our prosperity and with you that we find our way to our "success". Thank you for being there for us, watching over us and protecting us. Now we pray that you will guide us to the place you want us to go in our lives. You have already mapped out the plan for us, so guide our feet Lord in the direction that we may go. In Jesus's precious name I pray, Amen.