Measuring Success

How on earth do you measure success? I know what most people will say - level of importance, how famous you are, amount of money earned or whether or not you are a world champion. But do they really measure success?

All of those appear to measure achievement to me, but they don't necessarily make you successful. We often read stories of people who have won the Lotto and have become a 'success' - overnight. They apparently moved from being unsuccessful to successful in a stroke, purely because they won a lot of money and would not have to work again.

But what about their neighbour, the single mother, raising four children on her own? One is at university, one doing A-levels and the twins achieving great grades and making great friends in equal measure. Is she not a success? In the eyes of the world, she is not. She is just someone making a good go at it. But how many of us could successfully raise four children on our own?

How many of us could get up each day and put on our artificial legs and live a normal life? How many of us could get up at 4am every day and sweep the local streets? Are these people not more deserving of the tag 'successful'?

Their is a man in the Bible called David. It said of him that God was with him and he was successful in everything he did. Here we see that he did not move from one state to another (unsuccessful to successful), it was something he was. It was something he achieved because God was with him. He did not arrive at a place called 'Success' and reside there, he lived it every day.

Whatever you are putting your hand to today, remember that you can make it a success, no matter how small the world thinks it is. Achieving fame and riches does not make you a success - being humble, kind and of the right heart does and allows us to 'live success' and not make it a destination at which we think we have arrived.