Can I Handle Success?
You watched your project spit and sputter, stall out, get a restart and then slowly, perhaps very slowly, reach a level of success.
You knew it was God’s will, you put in the hard work, you fought past failures and rejections. So, now how is success treating you?
I’m interested because I haven’t reached that point yet. I haven’t even officially launched my website at the point of this writing! I wanted to get a few blog posts up and feel like I’m prepared before going public.
So I’ll have to muddle through what success is like. That’s not entirely true. I’ve had relative success in some areas of my life, and I can imagine what problems can accompany success of this present project. Let’s look at a few of them.
Failure and Rejection's Kid Sister - Success!
It’s great to get past the failure and rejection we talked about in our last post. But failure and rejection have a kid sister who, contrary to what we might expect, can prove to be pesty. Her name is Success. Can we handle success?
I’m reminded of that thought-provoking poem by Rudyard Kipling where he speaks of Triumph and Disaster, perhaps akin to Success and Failure, and I’m going to start today’s post with it. Enjoy the poem and be inspired as you face these two impostors. Then we’ll circle back to particular success issues.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man my son!
Triumph and Disaster - Imposters?
Disaster – aka Failure
Disaster, for the purpose of this post, is like the failures and rejections, the spits, sputters and stalls, of that New Thing you were (or still are) trying to accomplish.
You can rise up from disaster
If you have a few of them under your belt, you hopefully have realized that with God’s help, you can rise up from disaster. Here are a few biblical examples. If people rose up from disaster in the Bible, you can do it, too.
Genesis 50:20 (NLT) says:
- You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.
Romans 8:28:
- And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Even if you fail miserably
Even if you fail the Lord miserably like Peter did when he denied the Lord, remember how the Lord still planned to use him.
Luke 22:32 (ESV):
- but I have prayed for you [Peter] that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
The big picture
Look at disaster as an imposter. It may come, but it is not God’s big picture. Let God turn it whichever way He wants in your life.
God has a Disaster Recovery Plan!
Triumph - aka Success
Even success isn’t the big picture
How is success an imposter? In much the same way as failure. Success may come, but it is not God’s full picture. A success today may lead us to more giants to slay tomorrow. Oh, goody! ‘Tis true. Success is an imposter if we get the idea that the rest of our life will be filled with sunshine and roses.
We succeed to go on to new challenges
We succeed in Kindergarten so we can go on to face the learning and work of 1st grade!
And as we work out our calling, we may fail in some things. Think of a scientist researching new medicines or treatment plans, only to find many that don’t work. Or, Thomas Edison who failed multiple times before his successful light bulb.
And even if we fail the Lord because of our own sin or weakness, He forgives and continues His plan in us as we turn to Him and repent.
Hold both success and failure loosely
A wise person holds triumph and disaster, success and failure, loosely in their hands! Otherwise, they become imposters, fooling us into false understandings of their place in the big picture.
Let’s look at some other issues that Success brings.
Success Issues
Sacrifice
We sacrificed to reach success
You likely sacrificed to reach the level of success you are at now. And if you’re like me, you don’t regret the sacrifice. Our motto is to find something bigger than ourselves and give ourselves to it.
But it sure is nice to finally reap the weeks, months or years of sacrifice. The thought of additional sacrifice might be a bit depressing.
We will need to continue to sacrifice
Continued sacrifice is necessary. To maintain a fit body into old age, we continue to eat well and exercise. This is a sacrifice. And we must continue to sacrifice for our assignment.
However, that sacrifice may look different at different stages.
Ask God what can be tweaked so that you aren’t sacrificing unnecessarily. But always keep that sacrificial spirit. That is the spirit that Christ carried.
What other issue might we need to address as we face success? Time!
Time
Priorities matter
A successful endeavor requires continued time investment. Just think. If you weren’t involved with this assignment from God, maybe you could put your feet up more or vacation more.
Your priorities determine how you spend your time. You must be willing to invest the time it takes to keep your assignment successful.
Your temperament and stage of life
If you are a slower, more deliberate soul like I am, time is an especially valuable commodity because it takes us longer to do everything. Or, some of us are in that ‘tween stage where both our children and our parents require extra time, and our project is in jeopardy of falling behind.
Find God’s timing for your temperament and for your stage of life and learn to flow with it. Embrace the personality God gave you. It’s how He wants to use you! Enjoy your stage of life. It may be that He says to tend to the tasks in front of you now and let the successful assignment have rest for a while. Or, He may show you how to fit it all together. Let Him guide.
What must be done?
What works best for me is to make sure I do the things that “must” be done. What you think must be done might look different than what I think must be done. That’s ok.
First and foremost, if I have spent time with the Lord, I feel much more at peace to freely work on my project, not to mention that I can sense His leading more.
Secondly, if I get my exercise routine out of the way, I feel so much better about tackling other tasks. The advice to attack first the things that are hardest proves true for me.
Time robbers
To maintain success without becoming bogged down, we need to decide what is necessary and what needs to go. We need to take an ax to some things, even good things.
As someone once said, the good is the enemy of the best.
This may be easier for some than others. Perfectionists have an especially hard time because they want to incorporate every good thing in their project. But that will mean living in a perpetual state of “never enough” or “never quite good enough.”
Raise the ax! Save time for other parts of your life! Don’t let success drive you. Let God lead you!
Another issue we might face in our success is willingness to continually commit to our project.
Commitment
Like marriage
Success and continued success require commitment. Like a successful marriage, commitment keeps you in the game when things are going well or when things seem like they’re falling apart.
One thing I see from years of being married myself and dealing with the marriages of others as a pastor’s wife is that people who give up too early miss the rewards of pushing through the hard times. The rewards are GREAT. The marriage becomes sweeter. The level goes deeper. The union grows richer. Commitment works!
Go for it and stay committed
Can you commit to your project, job, ministry, whatever God is calling you to? I encourage you to do it, just do it. And as you reach success, keep committing to make the decisions and face the obstacles that arise. When it’s God’s time to wrap it up, to pass the baton on to someone else or to move in a new direction, He will show you!
Responsibility is yet another issue we might face in our success. Sometimes you just get tired of the responsibilities of life.
Responsibility
So now you’re successful. Will your responsibilities lessen or increase? That may depend on your project, but one thing is certain. There will be no more coasting through life.
Success requires continued responsibility
Even success in something called passive income requires responsibility. For instance, renting property is passive income but requires work. Ask anyone who rents out their property. You have to manage the property or hire someone else to. You have to deal with tenants who don’t pay their rent. The buck still stops with you.
Another example would be a successful social media platform. It may earn you money while you sleep, but you still need to write the content.
If you are ready to give up all responsibility altogether and coast the rest of your life, you will need to give up your calling. Is that what you really want? Probably not.
However, you may be able to make your workload more feasible.
Can you mitigate your responsibilities in some way?
Think through your present state. Are you able to delegate responsibilities to others that you once had to do yourself? Can you eliminate some things and concentrate on others? Have you outgrown some methods that need to be replaced with newer, more streamlined methods?
Or perhaps it’s time to continue your assignment but cut back some.
Ask God what exactly He wants for you RIGHT NOW. He probably won’t say to coast! But He might tell you to slow down and cut back. Or, it may be time to crank it up. Just listen and work smartly!
One last thing that we might face when we succeed is pride of heart.
Guarding our heart against pride
Pride of heart can creep in without warning. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, but both scripture and everyday life show plenty of examples.
If I sense even the slightest hint of pride, it helps me to attack it immediately. 2 Corinthians 10:5 speaks of taking our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ.
That is so true! We can’t feed them. We can’t bandage them up and nurse them. We can’t poke at them to see if they’re alive. We need to take them captive, no questions asked and no leeway.
Pride will mar and even destroy everything you worked for, everything God is trying to do through you.
Final Thoughts
Success brings its own set of problems. It brings both an exhilarating sense of accomplishment and a sobering sense of responsibility. We can reach success, and we can navigate and continue success with God’s help!
I’m believing with you for your success!
Let me know below what success is like for you or what issues you face with your success. Leaving a comment blesses me, encourages others and builds my rating. Thank You!
And keep coming back to my blog.
For the first three episodes of this series:
