Redefining Success

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I was recently reminded that this year will be my tenth year out of school. I was reminded by an invite to our 10-year high school reunion. My initial thought was how I was no where near where I wanted to be a decade post schooling. As if that was not enough, now here was a temptation to compare myself to others of my age. A trap.

While sifting through the many emotions triggered by this soon to be event, I realized one prominent feeling – fear with a hint of disappointment. I was afraid I wasn’t as successful as I should be at this point in my life. Luckily, God lovingly challenged my definition and understanding of success.

I consulted my Oxford dictionary. The main keys of what defined success was achieving something you wanted to do/be and acquiring wealth and fame. My attention was particularly drawn to a secondary definition of ‘succeed’ which is ‘to have the result or effect that was intended.’ I pondered on this last definition because it sounded more substantial than the others. It also fit well into the understanding I was being lead to through the book of Joshua.

“Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Joshua 1:6-8

First thing God pointed out is that success is not the same for everyone because success is determined by the achievement of one’s purpose. We’re all created for a purpose and can only be successful when we fulfill that particular purpose. Success is therefore beyond achieving something I’ve wanted to do or be and is actually about being effective in what God intended me to be and do. Success is beyond my goals and desires, it is about the intention of the one who made me.

God points out Joshua’s purpose: to lead the children of Israel into their inheritance. Unlike Moses, he was not called to lead them out of Egypt, nor was he called to lead them while in the land as we see the judges doing. Because his purpose was uniquely his, he needed to be strong and courageous in order to walk in it. It’s a faulty assumption that just because you’re meant to do something, it’ll be easy. You’ll still need a lot of courage to pursue what’s yours.

The first step to achieving success is to identify purpose.

Joshua’s success can only be correctly defined by his purpose. In Joshua 24 we freely say Joshua has lived a successful life because he has achieved what he was called to, and so he dies.
So, the first step to achieving success is to identify purpose.

Secondly, success is dependent on obedience. Obedience to God’s word leads to success, whatever your purpose may be and wherever you may be. God tells Joshua that he will be successful wherever he goes when he is obedient to his command. This teaches us that success is not really linked to a location. Isaac learnt this when he was planning to move to Egypt because of a drought. God stopped him in his tracks, told him he would be successful because He was with Isaac not because Isaac was perfectly located. So Isaac stayed and planted crops in the drought-stricken land and reaped a hundredfold in the same year. The same goes for Joseph who was successful while in prison. Moral of the story: you don’t need to be at a certain place to succeed, you need to listen.

To obey God takes a lot of intention. According to this Scripture, it means being aware of what God says, keeping your mind fixed on it, confessing it, refusing to modify it and so doing what it says. James 1:25 teaches us that such obedience to God’s word leads to a blessing in whatever we do. This blessing is what brings wealth.

“The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.” Proverbs 10:22

We clearly see the prosperity the blessing the Lord gives in Deuteronomy 28:11. For their obedience, God blesses them by granting them abundant prosperity. With this we can conclude that success is not determined by wealth but is accompanied by it. God says in the text that Joshua will be both prosperous and successful. This distinction shows that the two are not synonymous as we’ve been made to believe but their paths do meet at some point.

Fame has nothing to do with success and wealth is not it’s determining factor. With this in mind, I’m re-looking at things and regaining my confidence. I’m refusing to conform to the pattern of this world and its definitions and am embracing God’s truth, basking in the liberation that comes with it.

"In everything he did he had great success, because the Lord was with him." 1 Samuel 18:14


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