Success in the Kingdom

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about success. Thinking about how success is defined and how it is measured. Our culture throws all sorts of “success” stories our way. The guy that became a millionaire by the age of 25. The girl that has thousands of followers on Instagram. The person with the small startup that is now in the Fortune 500.

I agree that these stories and scenarios can definitely be defined as a success. Success is simply the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. So if these individuals were aiming for these sorts of outcomes, then they succeeded. This point in particular is one I have been reflecting on so heavily. I think that quite often our culture does not define or measure success accurately.

I would say that most of the time our culture assumes that everyone’s aims and purposes are towards wealth, fame and power. Sure, we want to be healthy, have good relationships, be a generally good person, but these are often secondary to the main purposes of wealth, fame and power. Even Webster’s dictionary defines success as the attainment of wealth, favor or eminence.

Naturally with these sorts of goals, success will be measured by the progress you are making in reaching these ends. You are being successful, or at least moving in the right direction, if your bank account is growing, by the square footage of your house, by the types of vacations you take, by the number of followers you have, by the promotions you receive, or by the level of power that you hold. Whatever specific regard you are measuring, it’s all about moving up and getting more.

A key value that is strongly married to these definitions of success is productivity. Productivity is a quantifiable amount of work achieved in a specific amount of time. The more work per unit of time, the greater the productivity. Few virtues are as exalted in the West as productivity. It makes sense when your aim is to be attaining more and more that you would want to be productive. Being productive=attainment=success.

We become obsessed with time, because time equals money (or fame or power). We strive to manage it, control it, and not waste it. The question asked is: What do you have to show for your time? Productivity becomes a benchmark used to assess our worth and level of success. How many books are there that basically say the key to being successful is waking up at 4am, managing your time this way, multitasking that way, etc?

Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be productive, work hard or be thoughtful about how we are using our time. I believe that God calls us to be good stewards and that we should give our best. What I want to talk about is how the Kingdom of God would define success and measure productivity. I have found our culture’s definition of success and productivity to be a great disservice and often contrary to my attempts to live in Kingdom ways, for a number of reasons.

First, I believe our culture’s definition of success—being attainment of wealth, fame and power—are simply not the aims and purposes of God. I understand that money and resources are not bad in themselves and can be used to do a lot of good things. Influence just is, we’re always being influenced. I hope to influence others towards good things. Authority can be used to bring justice and to serve the weak. I think a key difference in the aims of the world and the aims of God is: who is it all for? The world tells you to aim for these things, to be successful, for yourself. For your own enjoyment and in whatever ways you can be served. But in the Kingdom of God, we are vessels. We receive and then we give. It is about serving God and serving others. We enjoy what we have and we are extravagantly generous with what we have. The final destinations and motivations of our culture vs. the Kingdom of God are different. I think it’s important that we make this distinction and decipher what destination we’re really working towards.

Second, our culture is a system that only validates work that is visibly productive and tangibly compensated. Because of this, we can feel great anxiety about devoting ourselves to matters that don’t yield quantifiable results. The problem is, the Kingdom calls us to do this very thing. As followers of Jesus, our highest aim is to love God with all our hearts, all our souls and all our minds. To devote ourselves to loving God and loving our neighbors. Certainly not matters that are quantifiable or tangibly compensated.

To the world, things like prayer, spending time with God, processing, reflection, and rest can be seen as a waste of time as they aren’t “producing anything.” How often have I gone on a prayer walk, discipled my children or served a friend and said about my day “I didn’t really do anything.” So many important matters like character development, spiritual growth, and relationships could be seen as “doing nothing” because they don’t often yield immediate results. It can be very difficult to choose to “do nothing,” as the cultural pressures of productivity are strongly felt.

I can see how ingrained these measures of productivity are in us, even within the Church. We can so easily use our culture’s standards to measure how God is working. We count how many people are attending the service, the dollars in the offering, the number of baptisms, etc. And while these metrics can be helpful and can be the fruits of healthy ministries, it’s not the whole picture. We must resist the urge to always equate success with numbers and growth. God’s work is about the heart. And changing hearts is usually a slow, long process. We must renew our thinking to understand that even if the work isn’t visible or tangible to us right now, it can still be productive.

This connects to the third reason our culture’s definition and measure of success and productivity is unhelpful. Our culture assumes that we will and are able to “produce” at all times. That if we’re not producing, there is something wrong with us. Maybe we’re lazy. Because again, the assumption is that if one is working hard, you will be able to see, tangibly, their work. And again, our culture assumes that being productive (in this visible way), is the way to success. A more true perspective is to acknowledge the reality of seasons. The world around us shows us that there are seasons for things: times to plant, grow, produce, harvest, and rest. If you’ve ever had a garden you know that there is a process. Just because your plant isn’t producing tomatoes right now, doesn’t mean that it won’t. It takes time. It takes patience. And just because it isn’t producing fruit at the moment, doesn’t mean a lot of energy isn’t being spent (and is a prerequisite to the fruit). Likewise, we as people are not meant to produce all of the time, our life has seasons. Some seasons are for learning and studying. Some are for healing and rest. Some are for reflection and maturing. Some are for serving. Some for building and developing. Some for reaping and harvesting. Life is complex and we can’t judge success based only on the visible and quantifiable. And we should be careful not to give into the cultural pressures to be “productive.” The best fruit comes from patiently allowing the process with all of the necessary stages. We need to recognize and know our season so that we can devote ourselves to whatever is necessary for it. Not trying to rush or manipulate it into something else out of our fear, really, of not being productive.

This brings me to the heart of what I want to say. What does it mean, in the Kingdom of God, to be successful? How does the Kingdom measure productivity and success? I believe the Kingdom defines and measures success by obedience and faithfulness. Like I mentioned earlier, I believe our highest aim and purpose as followers of Jesus, is to love God and love our neighbor. How each of us does that in our day to day, what kind of job we’ll have, how we practically spend our 24 hours, will vary for each of us. I think what is important, and what makes you successful or not, is whether you are faithful to God, faithful to live in kingdom ways and to be obedient to the ways that God leads you. I like how one pastor said it, “Success and failure are master words; faithfulness is the concern of stewards.” If we have decided to follow Jesus, we have said yes to giving Him our lives. We are no longer our own masters—our lives our not just ours to serve ourselves. Saying yes to God means following His example of giving up our lives in order to serve. I believe that God will lead each person to serve in a unique way. What is required of us is to be a good steward of the resources, tasks and responsibilities God gives us. And that as we are faithful in stewardship, God will be faithful to bring about success.

To be vulnerable, the ways of our culture can get to me and I can struggle feeling like a failure at times. We’re not getting rich doing our work, we don’t have a big platform and following and for the past year our work hasn’t been very tangible and quantifiable. By our culture’s standards we’re not very successful and seemingly “doing nothing.” But I believe by Kingdom standards, we’re doing a lot! We’ve done a lot of hard work of reflection, processing, refining and developing. We’ve grown and matured in character and faith. We’ve especially grown in patience and trust as we have actively chosen to not be super busy and “productive” because of God’s leading. It has been challenging as I love to get stuff done and produce. And I like it when others can see how much I’m producing and say what a good job I’m doing. But, I like obeying God more. Even though it’s been hard to willingly look like a failure in the world’s eyes, I know that our work and vision will only truly succeed through obedience and faithfulness.

My hope in writing all of this is that you would take a moment to consider what the aims and purposes of the Kingdom of God are. To consider the standards you measure with and whether they are the right standards considering those aims and purposes. I hope that you won’t automatically measure your life (or others) by what our culture serves us and the pressures so easily and strongly felt. But that through some thought and reflection, you will be more confident and able to remain faithful and obedient to the life God calls us.