Everyone wants to grow up to be a success. It doesn’t matter what we aspire to be or do, as long as we’re successful. No one sets out with the goal to be a failure.
That’s not to say we don’t appreciate the lessons learned from failure. The story is that Edison went through a thousand or more elements in attempting to create a functioning light bulb. According to the story, Edison’s attitude was that there were no failures in each attempt that didn’t work. Instead, those were lessons about what wouldn’t work, and he moved on to another element until he found the one that would work.
Still, no one sets out in life to be a failure. Sadly, though, not everyone can be a success. Society lauds the successes while looking down our noses at the failures. Seeing the homeless person on the street does not bring us a sense of pride and acceptance. Quite the opposite, usually.
All of this idea of success and failure, though, is predicated on how people look at each other and at success. For the believer, the question shouldn’t be how we see success and failure, but how God defines the terms. When we come to the mindset that says we want to succeed in His eyes, then we begin to transform the discussion and attitudes we may have formed.
To help answer that question, we need to look to the Bible.
The Call of Isaiah
One of the best known of the Old Testament prophets is Isaiah. There’s not a lot we know about him. Isaiah 1:1 says he had a long ministry, lasting through the reigns of three or four kings, depending on how you interpret Isaiah 6:1. Still, his was a long ministry, and it was a successful ministry.
Isaiah 6 is the chapter where we read about Isaiah’s call to be a prophet. It says the event occurred during the year when Uzziah died. There are some who claim the events of his calling took place immediately following the king’s death, but the chapter only states that it took place in the same year.
In any event, Isaiah had a vision of God. In the vision, Isaiah sees God exalted and supreme, with angels attending Him. Seeing the majesty of God, Isaiah is immediately struck by his unworthiness to be in His presence. Isaiah laments his sinful condition, and immediately God sets his soul at rest with forgiveness and cleansing.
Following this, the voice of God is heard. “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” (v. 8a). To his credit, Isaiah doesn’t write that he looked around to see who God might be speaking to, hoping someone else would step up. No, as soon as he hears the question, Isaiah answers, “Here I am. Send me!” (v. 8b).
God then tells Isaiah, “Go and tell this people: Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn and be healed” (vs. 9-10).
To get a better grasp of what’s going on, it’s important to remember how we measure success when it comes to church work. It is the hope of every minister that the church he serves will be one that increases its membership, with people joining the fellowship each Sunday. It is the secret hope of each preacher that his ministry will be such that his church attains constant and continual growth for the length of his ministry, and that at the end of his ministry at that church, he then moves to a bigger church where the cycle resumes.
What Isaiah just heard was that he was going to proclaim God’s word to the people, and the message would fall on deaf ears. He would present to the people a vision from God and they would be blind to the vision.
Understandably, then, Isaiah asks the question almost each of us would ask: “For how long, O Lord?” (v. 11a). God’s answer in vs. 11b-13 is essentially, “For as long as you minister.” In short, Isaiah, when you look at the membership rolls of your “church,” don’t expect to see any growth.
And yet, we say that Isaiah’s ministry was a success. Why? Clearly, it wasn’t that the people responded positively to his message; just the opposite.
No, Isaiah’s success came not from the measure of responses, but in the faithfulness Isaiah demonstrated by remaining faithful to God and to his calling. Isaiah’s success was that he did exactly what God called him to do, and he did it without exception.
The same can be said of Jeremiah. His ministry was one where the people not only didn’t listen to his message and respond favorably, but they would often do quite the opposite. Jeremiah was not afraid to tell God that he wasn’t happy with his ministry calling. He even suggested he wanted to stop, but that he couldn’t. God’s word would well up inside him to the point that he felt compelled to speak the message God gave him. Even though Jeremiah complained, though, he never told God no, and he never refused to do what God called him to do. Toward that end, Jeremiah’s ministry was also a success.
The point is that success and failure are seen in entirely different light from the perspective of man and that of God. Man looks at results—what are the numbers showing, whether it’s one’s bank account, one’s followers, etc. With God, it’s not the numbers, it is how well we have trusted Him and placed ourselves at His direction and disposal. God’s measure of success is not are we doing the work, but are we letting Him do the work through us. When Moses went to Pharaoh, the only thing Moses did was tell Pharaoh exactly what God told him to say. God did the rest. Because Moses’ life was consistently like that—placing himself at God’s disposal that God could work through him—Moses was a success.
That’s the case with every person in the Bible. Those who placed themselves under God’s leadership and let Him act through them were the most successful. Those who didn’t were the greatest failures.
Jonah is the only person in the Bible I can find where I’m not sure if he was a success or a failure. When told by God to go to Nineveh and preach repentance to them, Jonah booked passage on a boat that would take him as far from Nineveh as possible. When God sent the fish to swallow Jonah and spit him out on the land, Jonah got the hint. He went reluctantly to Nineveh, preached the message, then waited for their destruction. When the city heeded his message and repented, Jonah resented it. Was Jonah a success—he did what God told him to do, and the result was a city saved from judgment. Or was Jonah a failure—he did what God wanted, but resented it every step of the way. Jonah is the only book in the Bible that ends with a question mark, and I think that is for a reason.
Two Examples of Failure in the Bible
If success in the eyes of God is walking in obedience to Him regardless of the outcome, then it stands to reason that failure would be seen in failing to follow God’s will. There are two excellent examples of this failure, one in the Old Testament and the other in the New.
Toward the end of the period of judges, the people of Israel went through difficult times. Eli was the high priest who was faithful to God, but his sons were not. God’s judgment was upon the household of Eli, but God sent Samuel to Eli to be raised and trained. Samuel was a faithful servant of God, perhaps the greatest of Israel’s judges. Yet, his sons, too, were not obedient to God. The people feared the day that Samuel would die and his sons would take over, so they clamored for a king.
God chose Saul to be the first king of Israel. Saul didn’t want the job. When the time came to proclaim the new king, Saul was hiding among the baggage. Yet, Saul became king, and as king, he had a duty to be obedient to God. One of Saul’s chief duties was to fight against those who lived in the lands that were not of the tribes of Israel and did not worship God. Specifically, he was to fight the Philistines.
Saul was good at fighting the Philistines, but Saul had a major flaw. One of the reasons Saul didn’t want to become king was because he never felt adequate in that position. As a result, he was very keen on pleasing the people. So when a conflict would arise between doing that which God required or doing what the people wanted, Saul tended to side with the people. Numerous times, God commanded Saul to do something only to see Saul fall short. Saul had the best intentions, but there’s an old saying about intentions and the road to hell.
The point came in Saul’s kingship when he ignored God’s will too often. God withdrew his favor upon Saul and found a new king that would take the throne. David was anointed by Samuel according to God’s command, but David did not immediately become king. There was period when Saul reigned with the knowledge that David was his most important rival.
Saul became increasingly obsessed with David and tried to kill him numerous times. But God’s favor was with David, not with Saul, and eventually, Saul lost his kingdom when he lost his life in battle. The lesson to learn from Saul’s life is that there are times when pleasing God and pleasing others are mutually exclusive. Our goal must be to always obey God.
In the New Testament, the greatest example of failure is Judas Iscariot. Judas was one of the 12 chosen by Jesus to be a disciple. According to various gospel records, Judas became the treasurer for the disciples. It is suggested that Judas was not above “borrowing” from the treasury to provide for himself. Regardless of this character flaw, Judas was one of the chosen 12. He had daily access to Jesus. He walked and talked with Jesus, he spent as much time with Jesus as the other disciples. He saw what Jesus did and heard what Jesus taught. In every way, Judas should have been prepared to carry out Jesus’ will.
And yet, Judas saw an opportunity to benefit himself and force Jesus’ hands. I am of the firm belief that Judas believed Jesus was the Messiah. I also firmly believe that Judas’ idea of Messiah was similar to the others—someone who would establish an earthly kingdom, throwing off Roman rule and bringing the glory days of David and Solomon back to Israel. I also believe Judas became impatient with Jesus. Perhaps Judas convinced himself that Jesus would only proclaim Himself as the new King only if His hand was forced. Judas, seeing an opportunity to force Jesus’ hand and personally profit from it, made a deal with the religious leaders to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. I believe Judas thought that when Jesus was about to be arrested, Jesus would see that He had to establish His kingdom at that time.
When Jesus meekly went with the Temple guards and allowed Himself to be crucified, Judas’ belief in Jesus cratered. Instead of seeing Jesus as Messiah, he came to see Jesus as someone who talked a good game, but didn’t have the true calling. Going to the religious leaders, Judas tried to correct his mistake, claiming to have betrayed an innocent man. When the religious leaders refused to release Jesus, Judas threw his silver at them, went away and hung himself.
Judas’ failure was not in misunderstanding Jesus. At one time or another, each of us has done that. We’ve all disappointed Jesus with our decisions not in keeping with His will. At the cross, the only disciples who stood with Jesus was John. The others had fled. But they repented and continued to follow Jesus. Judas alone was the one who never saw the need to repent and follow Jesus. He regretted the part he played in Jesus’ crucifixion, but his tragedy is in losing faith in Jesus entirely.
What God Expects from Us
There are numerous times in the Bible when God is asked what He wants from us. In Micah 6:8, God says, “He has showed you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with the Lord your God.” In John 6:29, Jesus says, “The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.”
Jesus expects us to be obedient to Him. “Why do you say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well grounded” (Luke 6:46-48).
Our obedience is an outgrowth of our love for Him. “If You love Me, you will obey what I command. . . Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. . . If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teachings. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love Me will not obey My teachings” (John 14:15, 21a, 23-24).
In order to be obedient, we have to know what He commands. The only way we can know what He commands is to become aware of those commands, and the best way to do that is through studying and reading the Bible, and spending regular time with Him. The willingness to live the obedient life means we must always be open to His leadership and direction as provided through the Holy Spirit that was sent to guide us into all truth (John 16:13) and to remind us of all that Jesus said (John 14:26).
Conclusion
If anyone wants to be good at anything, that person will put in the time and effort to become not just good at the task, but seek to daily become better and better at it. It’s not enough to say we believe in Jesus. We must also be faithful servants, daily seeking His will and walking humbly with Him. This is our calling. Only then can we find success in God’s eyes.
© 2018 Glynn Beaty