...is the title of this article by Jimmy Needham on Desiring God. Below are some quotations, but the whole article is well worth a read:
How do you measure success in your life? As an artist, I’m tempted to assess myself in all kinds of wrong ways....
In our culture, numbers are king. It’s increasingly difficult not to see growth as our surest sign of God’s favor. As Christians, the questions can be even more frustrating because our motives are often for noble causes like advancing God’s kingdom and making him famous in the world. How could God say no to that kind of ambition?....
We subtly begin to assume that bigger is always better. Success and suffering are incompatible to the natural human mind. We think, If God loves me, he will bless me (and my work, and my ministry)! The absence of blessing must mean the absence of love. This is the centerpiece of prosperity preaching, but it hides inside even the most doctrinally sound Christian....
After prophesying Peter’s death, Jesus commands him, “Follow me.” Yet immediately after we read that, Peter turns around, looks toward the apostle John, and asks, “Lord, what about this man?” (John 21:21). How quick we are to envy another’s story. Theodore Roosevelt once called comparison “the thief of joy.” Sadly many of us leave the door of our heart wide open for the thief to enter in and rob us of contentment in Christ.
With the command to follow him, Jesus is calling us to mind our own business, stay in our own lane, and fix our gaze on him, not our neighbors. When we do this, we will be free to celebrate the success of others, and find rest on whatever path God puts us....
In that final conversation between Christ and Peter, the author slips in one phrase that unveils the central truth of the passage, and the key to the mystery: “This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God” (John 21:19).
To most, there is no glory in death. The world scoffs at the unsuccessful. The spoils always go to the chart toppers, the CEOs, and the Fortune 500s. Not so for the Christian. Death is one of the many things that is now owned, and exploited, by our God. He is in the business of turning death on its head to produce good things for his people. When Christ hung on the tree at Golgotha, his followers saw it as the termination of his kingdom, when it was really the inauguration.
What is our measuring stick for success? It is this: Follow Jesus wherever he leads, even if he leads us to death. In the end, the most modest ministry done faithfully in obscurity will prove to make the Master look glorious.
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