Our society has many gods and idols, but one of the most potent is Success. Not only is success worshipped with loyalty and devotion, but its most ardent worshippers are elevated to the position of idols themselves. Successful athletes, actors and entrepreneurs are paraded before us as the models we should emulate.
There is nothing wrong with success, in its original sense of achieving a desired result. The writer of Psalm 118 prayed "Lord, grant us success." Jesus successfully healed the sick, fed the hungry and preached the gospel.
Unless we are mentally disturbed, we begin every action we take with the hope and determination that we will succeed.
But the word "success" has changed its meaning. It now has less to do with results than with recognition. A child who adds up a column of numbers and gets the correct answer has achieved success in its old-fashioned sense - let's call it "simple success". If the same child then receives praise from his teacher, adulation from his parents and becomes the envy of his classmates, he has achieved success in the modern sense. In fact he, (not his answer), is described as "a Success".
Achievement and success have changed their relationship to each other. Once success resulted in achievement (or a satisfactory result). If you succeeded in growing a crop, the resulting harvest was your reward. Now we are encouraged to achieve results in order to be successful.
The pursuit of success pervades our whole lives. Parents are so concerned that their children should be successful at school that what they learn takes second place to what marks they achieve. A workable faithful marriage is not enough; marriages must be successful. Career success is not measured by job satisfaction and a decent income but by promotions and salary increases.
Success tends to be associated strongly with popularity. The book with the most sales, the actor with the most Oscars, the politician with the most votes are deemed to have the most success and therefore the most influence, regardless of whether or not they have anything worthwhile to say. The democratic principle has leaked from politics and government (where it is valid) into places where popular opinion ought to have little relevance.
Success also tends to be associated with comparison and competition. It's not enough to be competent in what you are doing, you must do it better than anyone else to be a success. Simple success in investing your money only becomes Success if you make more money than other investors. A good lawyer becomes a successful lawyer when he or she represents other successful people and makes a lot of money. An athlete, to be a success, must win gold.
It helps to understand why our society worships success. People worship whatever they believe will protect them from the thing they fear most. If they fear famine, they'll worship fertility. If they fear loneliness they'll worship sex or romance. In our materialist culture, where life is seen as a chance event in a Godless universe, people fear insignificance. So they seek a god who will give them significance.
If there is no God to say "Well done, good and faithful servant" at the end of our lives, then we will have to find someone to say it in this life. If there is no life after death, then the only way of having any lasting significance is to make our mark now. What we do will be remembered far better than who we are. Doing something noteworthy enough to be recorded as a success improves our chances of being remembered.
Christians generally manage to avoid falling into the obvious traps of success. Most of us would put loving obedience to God ahead of becoming rich and popular, and loving our neighbour ahead of out-classing them. In theory we gain our significance from God. Yet worship of success still manages to creep into Christian lives and churches.
Take, for instance, a recent catalogue from a Christian bookshop. The words "Popular author" and "Best seller" appear regularly in its pages. Presumably the success of these books is meant to entice us into buying them. Another example is the way in which the worldly success of some evangelists is used to verify their message. What difference does it make to the truth of the gospel that someone has been a success in sport, business or television?
It's very tempting to look at how the world gets results and apply the same methods to Christian activity. We want to evangelize, so why not use the marketing techniques used by business to bring people in? We've got lots of hurting people in our church, so let's train our ministers to use the sorts of therapies used by psychologists. We need more money, let's bring in some financial counsellors to tell us how to make it.
I'm not suggesting that we should never adopt knowledge and skills from the world to do God's work. The key question is, what else are we adopting with these ideas and skills? Many therapies are based on assumptions about human nature that contradict what the Bible says. Some advertising techniques use dishonest or underhand methods to attract people. Some financial counsellors give money a place in their lives that only God should have.
We may think we are shunning "Success", yet still be swayed by the three consorts of success - achievement, popularity and competition. How often do we mistake being busy for being obedient? Why do we feel that a well-known evangelist must have something better to say than our own preachers? How many of us constantly compare ourselves and our church to other Christians and their churches? Why do many of us, on turning 40 or 50, feel a sense of desperation at how little we have "achieved" for God?
Our problem lies in trying to adopt the methods used by those who idolize success in our worship of God. There's nothing new in this. As the Israelites stood poised to march into Canaan, Moses warned them of the dangers they would face from the nations they were about to displace. "When you have driven them out ....be careful not to be ensnared by enquiring about their gods, saying 'How do these nations serve their gods?
We will do the same.' You must not worship the Lord your God in their way because they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates." (Deuteronomy 12.29-31) It's easy to think that we are trying to please God when in reality we are motivated by envy ("Why should the world have all the success?") or lack of trust ("God's methods won't work").
The opposite of Success is not failure but humility. It's an attitude that says "I can do nothing worthwhile without God". Or as Solomon put it, "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain" (Ps 127.1). It isn't the false humility of the Pharisee, who thanked the Lord that he wasn't like other men (or ourselves when we cover our pride in our own achievements by thanking God that we're not like other churches). It's the humility of Jesus, who rejected Satan's offer of success, and scorned the shame of the cross in order to win glory from his Father. It's the humility of Paul, who boasted of his troubles and weaknesses, "For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12.10).
By Stella Budrikis