christian success

Today after sneaking away from one of the tree people during an otherwise nice run (he was also trying to hide from me, scary) I went to Brianna's house for lunch. We had an interesting talk about......for lack of a better description, Christian success.

I, like most other people, think of success as really doing something notable with your life. It's making your name worth being remembered, right? Right. However, not if you're a Christian. Then, if you're a Christian success is furthering God's kingdom and making His name known. That's the way I tend to see it anyway.

Brianna and I talked about people who really love Jesus but are held back by something in their lives that is not their fault. Their spouse, parents, children, health, or a financial burden they somehow obtained without creating it themselves. However you fill in that blank it seems tragic. All their dreams drowned by this one thing. I find myself saying, "If only this or that were different that person would really be able to do something great for God." I think it a lot actually.

She challenged me today. "How will that mould their character?" Brianna asked if maybe God is more concerned about purifying His bride than He is about everything else. He's big enough to do whatever it is He needs done with or without ideal circumstances in our lives. Could it be He allows those things to happen because His idea of Christian success is completely different from ours? Because He knows He can hold us through rough times and use the impossibly bad to do something impossibly good? Could that do more for His name than any amount of striving in our own strength ever would? Is the shaping of my character more important than all I could do on my own as I am now? Is it possible for God to both work in me and through me at the same time even if I don't feel like I'm useful and can't see it? Maybe I've made the mistake of grossly underestimating the Creator of the universe......