As you drive north from SFO you see a lovely sign on the side of a hill: "South San Francisco: The Industrial City". How did a group of people making that decision think that was a good idea? It's not exactly appealing is it? But it does tell the truth about that small city. If they wanted to tell the truth about the city just to the north the sign might read "Welcome to San Francisco. Come work yourself to death."
Let's face it. We live in a growing culture of success that drives our lives in ways that we don't even recognize. And it starts at such a young age now. My 7th grade daughter stresses over grades because those grades are critical to her high school choices in another year. 7th grade! The only things I cared about in 7th grade were Laurie Tyner and sports. But now we wear people out early and often because after all, we must succeed! We must achieve! We think it will give us security, importance, and happiness, as Helen Rubin suggests in this quote:
Of all the subjects we obsess about, success is the one we lie about the most. That success and it's cousin money will make us secure. That success and it's cousin power will make us important. That success and it's cousin fame will make us happy. It's time to tell the truth. Why is our generations smartest, most talented, most successful people flirting with disaster in record numbers? People are using all their means to get money, power, and glory, and then self destructing. Maybe they didn't want it in the first place. Maybe they didn't like what they saw when they finally achieved it.
- Helen Rubin, Fast Company
Security from success? We are one microbe away from an illness that all the education in the world can't cure. Remember the line from Porgy and Bess? "The folks with plenty of plenty gotta pray all day, see with plenty you sure gotta worry how to keep the devil away." Not only does success fail to deliver, it also takes away the security we've got because it introduces all sorts of worries, all sorts of fears and suspicion that we are going to fall from the position we've gained.
Importance from success? The more success we have the more we realize the world we live in is a "what have you done for me lately?" kind of world. The euphoria we get from success easily fades away, and we are back on the treadmill trying to make it happen again, turning us into achievement addicts, needing higher and higher doses of success for less and less payoff. We are slaves to whatever we think makes us important. As the theologian Bob Dylan said many years ago, "You gotta serve somebody." If you have nothing to live for bigger than your own significance you will increasingly feel insignificant. This has been the universal testimony of many wildly successful people I've talked with in the past 15 years.
Happiness from success? If it doesn't deliver security or importance do I really have to make this point? The most successful people I know still say there's a void, a chasm, in the center of their soul, that no amount of toys or properties or travel can fill. People find that they can drive twenty truckloads of money into their hearts and they still feel empty. I'd make the case that one of the best ways to know how empty we are inside is to be wildly successful. Having finally achieved the "it" that will make everything better... you know now that "it" doesn't deliver.
Security, importance, and happiness are only found in one place, ultimately. If there is a God we can know, no matter what happens in our life, we are secure. If there is no God, not matter how good things are, we are insecure. If there is a God we can know then everything we do matters, is weighty, will count forever, including ourselves. No matter what happens here. If there is no God then it's hard to say anything matters and if so, says who?
Happiness? The gospels tell us that happiness is a byproduct of a life centered on Jesus and the good news of his death and resurrection, rather than a direct destination we achieve. The gospel actually encourages us to first come clean that we are powerless to gain on our own happiness and go to the only possible source of security, importance, and happiness Himself and say "I was designed by you, for you, and the best thing I can do with my life is to pursue you with all the mix of beauty and messiness that I am, with all the confusion and questions I have, with all the strengths and gifts I have."
I love the characters we meet in Scripture because they are that mix of beauty and mess. Abraham, David, Peter are people falling apart, full of doubts and full of faith. Do you know why? Because at the heart of Christianity is the unique story of a success through failure. We have a God who became weak and died for us so that we could become saved by grace. We have a Savior who gets glory by emptying himself of it who tells us the way to freedom is to make yourself a servant.
So maybe the first step to success is to admit we have none. The first step to security is to admit we are insecure. The first step to importance is to stop trying to manufacture it and see how God values us through giving us His Son. I think Jesus gave us the word we are looking for when he started his sermons with the word "Repent!" Turn around. Go in a new direction. He says "Repent and believe the good news!" The good news that a new way of thinking and living and believing is possible that doesn't wear us out, but actually fills our soul. Is that good news for you?
