Be a truck

My son and I spent some quality time yesterday talking about what success is. To him, a singer-songwriter who has self-produced three albums and is on the road playing in places fairly late at night about five or six times a week, success is being paid to do what you enjoy doing. Size of the crowd isn't the issue. The process is. I honor that. I would struggle to be that.

I told him that I had a friend who had written a book and had it self-published and she was filling Facebook with stuff about it and was as proud as one could be. I, on the other hand, had self-published a book earlier this year and all and all was a bit ashamed that I had to do all that because all I felt was no one wanted to publish it so it couldn't have been very good.

It wasn't enough to enjoy the process, you see. It was about the outcome for me. The outcome was I spent folks money and sold very few books, and I wonder whether I made any difference at all. No, I know I didn't.

I wish I could clear the head and see success in the same way my son does, which is to see it on its merits. I, too often mind you, see success in the numbers that my church, the United Methodist Church, seems to have tilted so heavily toward: how is your church doing in confessions of faith, new members, youth numbers, children numbers? Mine, sadly, isn't doing so hot on those numbers. Therefore, before they do, there have been times I've declared my ministry to be a failure.

My son argued about that, saying this shouldn't be about me. What are you trying to accomplish, he asked? "Is it about bringing people to Jesus, or is it about you?" I argued back that I can see it no other way because leaders take people sometime even where they don't want to go. I, on the other hand, have not taken these two churches as far as they need to go. Therefore if my little bit of ministry is as stale and stagnant as it can be and no one new is coming to Christ, then it has to be about me. It is me.

Then my son argued that some of what I was feeling was ego. I, coughed, hesitated and finally agreed. It is. It hurts to have chosen to go full-time into the ministry and not be able to lead the churches into full-time ministry at the same time. I don't know how.

So, I return to the source:

In 1 Samuel, I read this idea of success: ¹³ So (Saul) sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men, and David led the troops in their campaigns. ¹⁴ In everything he did he had great success, because the LORD was with him.

In 1 Chronicles, that idea is increased: May the LORD give you discretion and understanding when he puts you in command over Israel, so that you may keep the law of the LORD your God. ¹³ Then you will have success if you are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the LORD gave Moses for Israel.

In the Psalms the writer screamed to the heavens, LORD, save us! LORD, grant us success!

Clearly, the success comes from God. But I would also imagine that whatever the success was, it was in the eye of the beholder. Again, success for some might not be what some others would call success.

It is interesting to me that the Old Testament has many uses of the word success, or the Hebrew word for success. There is no usage of the word in the New Testament. Perhaps giving one's life for a world that disowns you might not be most folks idea of success.

What can we take from this? What is success to you, the reader? Is it in the job you have? Is it in how well you do that job? Is it family life? How well the kids turn out? Is it how you feel about the life God has given you, or do you sit and look out your morning window, a cup of hot coffee in your hand wondering is there was more you could do, more you should have done, another life you could have, can now live?

I don't know the answer for most. I spent much of yesterday evening watching my hero, Rich Mullins, talk about the type of Christianity he espoused. Rich died 15 years ago this year, so I only knew of him while he was alive about two years since this will be my 17th year back in the church this coming August. But what I heard him say was Christianity was just being yourself. Being who God loves, not wanting to become someone God could love.

I had forgotten that. Or maybe I wanted to.

Success should be this, I imagine: God gives us a few wonderful gifts. What we do with them is what we do with them.

Using an altered Rich analogy through the prism of this discussion, If Henry Ford created you a truck, he didn't do it so that you could go add all sorts of features and get yourself ready to be bought by someone. He created you to go be a truck.

So be a truck. Some trucks are great in huge crowds at monster truck rallies. Some trucks just tug on through 200,000 miles with a taillight hanging on but still going strong for those who love them. Some trucks are shining and have great sound systems. Some trucks have a bunch of Red Bulls on the floor board, a stickshift on the floor and their best days were never all that good.

But they're all trucks. Not all of them are monsters. But at their base, they crank, they run, they shut down. Same process. Same result.

Go be a truck, I'm hearing. Go be a truck.