SALT WATER

CLEAN WATER

Getting ready to speak at a public school with Mark Bell, Ben Nease and Nick Moultrie

LIVING WATER

Sharing the gospel with kids in El Salvador on one of our trips there

WISDOM AS SUCCESS - PROVERBS 2:1-10

I want to talk to you today about wisdom as success.

And so what are we talking about when we're talking about success? I have my personal sort of success scoreboard that I've worked really my whole life on and very upfront about the things that I measure in my life that I value. And so I put that here on every video and that's just to be very upfront about what I think success is.

You know, if you're going to follow someone, you really want to make sure that you're paying attention to what they are counting. Because if they're counting things that you don't value, then it begs the question, why would you want to follow them?

So when we talk about success, let's talk about what it is not. It's not money. It's not material things. It's not position. So when we're talking about success, it doesn't have to do with class structure or caste systems because class structure in caste systems, they view life through a lens of comparison.

And really, if you're going to get at a really good definition of success, you're going to want to make sure that it isn't through the lens of comparison. Because when you compare yourself to others, you always come out as either better than or less than.

And that's really broken math.

When we think about success, it's simply in relationship to the talent that we have, to the values that we have, and then the contribution that we want to make in the world. That really has nothing to do with other people. So that's what it is not. It's not class structures and caste systems built around comparison. Proverbs chapter 2 verses 1 through 10, it actually says that God has success in store for the upright.

So what is success then? Well, success has more to do with the mental advancement based on learning and humility. So success in that sense isn't something that you ever arrive at. You see, it is much more of a destination that you have in mind. And so a couple episodes ago, I talked about humility and that really being the foundational principle of a sincere spiritual life. If you can dig into Christian literature at all, you'll find that the greats in Christian literature, not just in the last 50 years, which is mostly a bunch of recycled pop culture, if you start to dig back farther than that, you'll get into some really good stuff. And you'll find that nearly everybody talks about humility.

Humility is the foundation for sincere spirituality. And so success really has to do with the mental advancement based on learning and humility. It carries with it the idea of daily reflection in your life.

So when the Bible says that God has success in store for the upright, what God is saying is that through humility and through reflection and through prayer and through repentance, you can actually live a more meaningful and a deeper life on just about every level. And so it also means that your ideas about life, they're going to get better as they're formed by humility and prayer. So what happens is the way that you think about life when you're 20 is different at 30 and 40 and 50 and so on.

Now, why is that? It's because one of the beautiful things about having spent more time living for Jesus is that your ideas and your thoughts about life, they actually improve.

And so because the idea is that you spend more time with God and He speaks to you more, guides you by His Spirit more, you learn to trust Him more. And through that, you and your viewpoint about life, it changes and it recalibrates more towards God's thoughts and God's ideas about life.

I want to be really clear.

I don't teach the same algorithm of success for everyone.

I actually think that's a bad assumption and I actually think that's a bad algorithm. The reality is is sort of your definition of success and the scoreboard that you come up with for your life is very much going to flow out of humility and prayer.

So what I'll say is this, if I have anything to offer up by way of a formula, it would be this. A lot of prayer, a lot of scripture, a lot of reflection will lead you to the place that you want to end up in your life. That is incentive enough to want to get up every day and spend time with God. For me, I get up at 4 a.m. every day.

My father was a forklift driver for 37 years. That's just what I know. And I get up at that time every day and I like to pray and I like to think. And I will say this, that a little bit by little bit, year after year, life has gotten a little deeper and a little more meaningful because God whispers and guides me along in a little better way every day, every month, and every year. And now I can add it all up and it's turned to this life that I really never expected.

That is what Proverbs 2, 1 through 10 is trying to teach us when it says that he has success in store for the upright. As you trust God, you spend more time with God, really that wisdom is what will lead you to success. Now thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time, I hope you have a beautiful day.

50 DAYS OF WISDOM - DAY 5 "Wisdom as Success" Proverbs 2:1-10