The Failure of Success

I don’t like to fail. I would much rather not try than to fail; it is a personality flaw. On the positive side of that, I’m not going to do something haphazardly, because I want it done well, but if it I don’t see it going well, I’d rather not bother. It is an area where I am weak in my faith.
Jesus never seemed to be as hard on failure as He was on those who did not try. I have heard many sermons and lessons on why Peter started to sink when he went onto the water to meet Jesus, but Peter was the only one who even got out of the boat. And for at least a small portion of time, he was walking on the water. I’m sure I would have stayed in the boat. Then there is the parable of the talents. When the servant with the one talent returns it to his master, the master is furious because the servant did nothing with what he was given. The implication is that the servant would have been better off if he lost the talent trying to invest it. The master would have been more understanding.
I think of the ministry of Paul and I wonder if people thought of him as successful. He worked in all these cities preaching the gospel with only a few converts. He was ran out of town many times, threatened, and even stoned. Some of the churches he helped plant were in disarray. Look at the problems in the Corinthian and Galatian churches. Church history tells us that the church in Ephesus only lasted till around 120 A.D., only 60 years after Paul’s great epistle was written to them. But Paul’s ministry completely changed the world, and God used him to write Scripture, teaching us what it means to be the church. During Paul’s life, he understood he was working for the Lord, and that was the only success that mattered to him.
Jesus is much more interested that we act in faith than that we are “successful” Christians. To the Lord, a successful Christian is one who works for the Lord and follows His will and let’s God work the outcome. We are told to plant seeds and to water, but it is God who gives the growth, and many times we may never see the harvest of the work we have done, but the Lord does. And many times that harvest comes about through our weaknesses as much as our strengths. What is important is that we invest ourselves in the kingdom, whether it looks like success or failure. If we only do what we think will be successful instead of what is right and good, we make success our idol, something that Paul never did.
Work for the Lord, and if things turn out better than you expected (and most of the time it will), praise God. If things turn out much worse than you expected, praise God! God’s kingdom is not judged on success, it is judged on faithfulness. It reminds me to not judge my ministry on outcomes, but on faithfulness, and to live by faith and not by accomplishment. For failure in the Lord is better than success in the world.