Success: the correct or desired result of an attempt. This word success, either ignites anxiety or happiness in you depending on how “successful” you think you are. This word has dominated our culture and this word, lives and breathes in the midst of our conversations with one another. Amongst Christians it is no different. Interestingly, the word success is not once found in the Bible and God never defines it. I am convinced that the roots or underlying cause of why we are obsessed with this word is because of another word, comparison. We would not know success if we had nothing to compare it to. The sports team that wins all its games but one is successful until they compare themselves to the team that went undefeated. But the thing is, this comparison culture is not of the Kingdom.
Over the course of this month, in addition to never doing the race before, the task of Unsung Heroes has been difficult to gage how “successful” our team has been. I have struggled to get out of this comparative mindset. I found myself thinking, “Am I being lazy or unproductive? Is our team succeeding? What did other Unsung Heroes teams do?” Often times days look a lot like sitting at the Hostel and emailing contacts, or setting up meetings with ministries and organizations, or spending time with my team. Not exactly a month of ministry that you can tangibly measure results. It has challenged my fastpace, got to get things done, American way mentality and through this, God has taught me how to truly be present. “Being present” has nothing to do with time, but becoming okay with the process. I have learned this for the first time in my life. Until you are a lover of the process, you will never truly be present. And no surprise, we worship a God who loves process too. But this doesn’t mean there weren’t results, because there were. And if I were to tell you about the results of this month, I would tell you that we came into this month with ZERO contacts and are leaving with 15 potential full-time relationships for the World Race to connect with. I would tell you that we connected with Southern Baptists missionaries from the IMB (International Missions Board), Pentecostals from Hosanna Apostolic Community church, Catholic sisters from MUCEC (a Battered Women’s Shelter), Interdenominational churches like Crossroads Bible church, and International churches such as LifeBridge. In which all of them proved to me that the unity and diversity within His Bride is so beautiful.
But these results are not to be compared to other teams. Let me remind you that God is a God of which there is no comparison. He doesn’t compare churches or ministries to each other and even more importantly He never compares His sons and daughters. Yet we have adopted this mindset of comparison, but make no mistake, it is not from Him. Each one of His kids is completely different from one another. You are unique, you were carefully knit in the mother’s womb with great joy.
God loves you as you are, not as you should be- Brennan Manning
Brothers and sisters, stop looking for success. Right now, right where you are, YOU are God’s success. God loves you as you are right now and at the same time, loves you too much to keep you there. Take your eyes off each other and turn your gaze upon the One whose affections towards you cannot be numbered.
