If you want people to read an article you write, or watch a video you post, just make sure that the title has the word, “Success” in it. (I know. I just did that. Did it work?)
Fortunately, I am not attracted by these headlines that really reel the readers in, (preferring, instead, articles with photos of celebrities without make-up), but Success Articles abound:
The Bill Gates Plan: Five key attributes of the Successful Person.
Superstar Managers: How They Achieve Success and Become CEOs
13 Secrets to Success: Steve Jobs Still Speaks
Wisdom from Linked In
It’s not hard to find these — just pop onto Linked In and look at the top 5 stories, most of which have a minimum of 50,000 views. One time, I wandered over just to see what the writers were actually saying, which is, predictably, not much:
Successful people are confident, and powerful, and pro-active; focused, intentional, and dynamic; and they have a winning way about them. They have broad horizons and a sense of ownership that drives their thirst for excellence.
What’s intriguing — a little sad, actually — about these articles are the comments beneath:
“A pro-active approach to engaging a positive outlook on one’s horizon is top notch and essential!” — the implication strongly being that, not only does the commenting person agree with everything in the article, she or he actually got something out of it. (While one hopes that the people reading, and understanding, these success stories are not responsible for the middle management of others, I have a strong, sinking suspicion that they are.)
It’s Not a Sin to Want to Eat
For an ordinary person, wanting to be successful — as in, having more money than one needs to cover the rent, taxes, insurance, utilities, fees, a bit of clothing now and then, and adequate food — isn’t a sin. Anxiety about the future is a common attribute to mankind, and that God promised the Hebrew people a “land of milk and honey” is particularly telling:
We need to eat, and a place to live, and it’s increasingly difficult — in a global economy run by outrageously affluent people who are unwilling to share — for the average person to do this. So we flock to the Success stories, written by and about human raptors who make money off of the those who read and follow them. Do we honestly think that they truly want us to join them?
Yeah, I guess we do.
That’s why the prosperity preachers continue to make it: if the people in the pews would stop writing the checks, it would be interesting to see how long the Power Verses of Prosperity continued to work for the pulpit-holders promoting them.
But we’ll probably never know — because the people in the pews won’t stop writing the checks.
Follow the Master, not the Master-Mouth
As Christians, we are never promised prosperity, and indeed, because no servant is greater than his master (John 15: 20), we might keep in mind who our Master is, and how He lived (and died). While this seems a bit of a downer — I don’t want to be crucified any more than the next person does — it keeps our focus on God, not mammon, and our trust in His knowing what is best for our lives. It may not be a new car — but an old one, that runs, is a blessing that we will miss if we are constantly agitating for the Success that the world promises.
“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,” Isaiah 30: 15 says, which should be comforting, because we don’t have to be pro-active and dynamic and intentional and powerful and confident — everything our corporate culture (which has infiltrated the church, and not just prosperity churches, by the way) insists that we must be.
Actually, what we have to do is more difficult — in that verse above, repentance is the only “active” movement we can take; resting, being quiet, and trusting — while they seem passive — are astoundingly difficult things to do. We can’t succeed at them without God’s help and intervention. But to get that, all we have to do is ask.
The rest of the verse provides an interesting twist:
“. . . but you would have none of it.”
The Hebrews looked for strength and assistance from Egypt, the very nation that had enslaved them earlier and from which God rescued them, because they were impressed by its wealth and confidence and splendor and pro-active, intentional way of doing things.
The corporate world is Egypt, my friends. How do we think that it will answer our prayers?
Thank You
Thank you for joining me at Commonsense Christianity. It is remarkably difficult separating what our individual culture calls truth from actual truth. The best lie is one that is 95 percent true.
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