Pay The Price

“Don’t wish for the success of others because you have no idea the price they paid to get there.” Not sure where I heard that quote but it has rocked me several times as I think about it over the last year.

Success doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes time and there is a price to pay.  Too many times nobody wants to pay the price.  We want instant satisfaction.  We want instant success.  We are so used to pushing a button and getting what we want right away.  The problem that I have learned the hard way is if it is easy it is usually not worth a whole lot.  There is something about fighting though your faith or working hard to achieve a goal.

I’ve always envied the success of others.  I see leaders like Winston Churchill and Barack Obama in the world and I see leaders like Andy Stanley, Perry Noble and Steven Furtick in the church world and I catch myself saying I want what they have.  Here’s the deal I’m not them and I will never be them.  The best I can be is me.  The best part about that is that is all that God requires of me.  He didn’t create me to be them.  He didn’t create me to experience their success or their blessings, I have my own prepared for me.

With more success is more problems on a different level.  God gives us what we can handle when we can handle it.  There is no way I could run a church of 20,000 people or run a multi-million dollar company.  But what I can do is my best.  I have had to learn the hard way.  God has been working on stripping me of all pride and measure of what I valued and thought success was.  God has been taking me back to the basics.  Because of that I have learned an entire new respect for authority, serving and what true success in His eyes looks like.

Nobody was asking the church leaders that I mentioned to speak at conferences when they had a church of 20 people.  However they trusted God, were faithful and because of that they are seeing success that is not the norm.  If it was easy everybody would do it.  Truth is though, whether they have a church of 20 or a church of 20,000 it is not the size of the church that matters it is their pursuit of God and how that transcends into their everyday lives and into their everyday relationships.

So the key is pay the price by doing the little things.  Do what you can do.  Don’t wish for the success of other because you have no idea the price they paid to get there.  Just remember with others success comes others problems.  Learn to enjoy the journey and not rush the season of small beginnings.

Backside Deserts

Winston Churchill once said, “Almost every leader goes through a time of the ‘backside of the desert’ before becoming what they were made for.”  I love that quote because it’s a quote of hope and there is almost a promise in there.  But that really depends on your perspective.  You can easily read that and only focus on the ‘backside of the desert’ part of it.  You can focus on the curve balls that life has thrown you.  The empty promises, damaged relationships and obstacles that seem to impede your process.  Or you can focus on the ‘becoming what they were made for’ part of it.  You can focus on what God is doing through you and in you when you are feeling like nothing in life is going the way you want or planned.  Winston Churchill finished that quote by saying, “Sometimes this even happens after some initial, lesser success.”  I read this and think for some of you life is good but it could be great.  You have a good marriage, good relationship with your kids, a good job and a good life.  There will come a time when you feel like it may all be falling apart but that could be right before you experience what you were made for on the other side of the ‘desert’ experience.  Keep your head up and your eyes focused and stay persistent.  God is not finished making you extraodinary.