Success means different things.

A friend pointed something out to me from last weeks post on Faithfulness and Success. He said as a Christian, when you promote success, you need to make sure you talk about what success really means, or believers can fall into the "big lie", which is this. "If I do everything right, if I say all my prayers, if I am loving, if I work hard, then life will just be roses for me, as if God is basically my personal ATM machine, I dial the numbers, and God gives me the cash. No loving relationship should work this way. Imagine if you were only kind to your spouse or your friends when you wanted something. God wants our heart, just like every lover wants our heart, our spouse doesn't want kind sentiments only, they want our hearts.

Jesus would have prayed the 118 Psalm, "O Lord grant salvation, O Lord grant success,". His life was the perfect success, but from the worlds eye's it would have only appeared that way some of the time, some times the disciples did not understand, some times, "His teachings were too hard," and people left. Not exactly worldly success, and of course the cross. "In His will is my peace," the same saying could be, in His heart is my peace.

The point is this, we have the perfect Father, and He sees the whole picture, while we can only see what's right in front of us. We can find joy in this, that our success is in the hands of this perfect Father. Following His will, and listening too His "Still, small voice," is all the success we need, and this is where our happiness will lie.