Mothers and Success

 When my mother graduated to heaven in 1996, she left behind a loose leaf notebook of favorite quotes, poems, etc., written in her own hand. I followed her example, and this past week as I leafed through my own favorites, I reread this article. It still resonates with me, and I hope it will encourage you. Remember: God doesn't define "success" the way the world does. 

Success

Roger C. Palms, Editor of Decision Magazine

 

               When we feel obligated to measure our lives by the “success gospel,” we can too readily close the door to the sovereignty of God and miss what our Christian lives are meant to be.

               The Apostle Paul knew better. When he felt called to go out on his first missionary journey, life was not all that good. In the malarial coastal regions of Perga in Pamphylia, John Mark, his helper, left him and went home, and Paul may have become ill. So he and Barnabas went north to the mountains and preached in Antioch, where they were soon persecuted and expelled. They walked to Iconium, where their preaching stirred up people who wanted to stone them, and they had to flee, finding their way 18 miles farther down the road to Lystra. There the people first thought they were embodiments of Greek gods. But then Paul was stoned and ragged through the city gates, cast outside the walls and left for dead.

               Had Paul missed his calling? Did he ever wonder why there was so little “success”? Still, there was a teen-aged boy in Lystra who believed (perhaps he was even in his early twenties). His name was Timothy. He was ready for the Gospel because his mother and grandmother had taught him the Scriptures.

               When I think about Mother’s Day, I reflect on conversations I have had with mothers who wonder if they have missed God’s calling because they aren’t out in the marketplace being “successful.” They can’t point to great, immediate results from their calling to stay home and care for their children. A lot of things go wrong, or at least they don’t seem to go right. Are these mothers failures?

               Paul had the larger view and kept on. There proved to be some results from his preaching in each of those cities on that first journey, and small churches were started. Years later, just before he was martyred, when he wrote his last letter to Timothy, he could see the results even though he was still reminded of the terrible pain during those early years. He saw the work of God that enabled him to keep on going.

               We need that perspective, allowing God to be the God of history, not just of the immediate, as if he has to fit our make-it-to-the-top-now syndrome. If Paul had accepted that kind of teaching, he could easily have seen himself as a failure, and have seen someone like the Emperor, the man with the prestige, the power, the expensive chariots and the big house, as an example of a man blessed by God.

               Our obedience to Jesus may not seem to pay off immediately. That’s when we do what Paul did: keep on investing ourselves. It is faithfulness that God honors, whether on a missionary journey or in teaching of the Christian faith to one teenaged boy.