Slow Growth Equals Strong Roots by Mary MarantzSample

True Success

It’s easy to see all of the amazing things other people are doing and base our success on whether we can accomplish those things too. We see a friend or a stranger on the internet do A—let’s say start a new business. Then we see some other person we know do B—maybe start building their dream house. Then we see someone else post about doing C—perhaps it’s taking that dream vacation we’ve always wanted to go on or getting a brand-new kitchen.

And even though we saw one person do A, another person do B, and still, another person do C . . . somewhere in our heads it becomes, “Okay, so in order to be successful I must do all three: A, B and C.” But we’re setting ourselves up for failure because we’re starting with a list that no human is actually accomplishing.

Before I add yet another checkmark to an already overstuffed list of all the things I hope to one day aspire to, I want to ask myself: Am I doing it because it fulfills a calling over my life? Am I doing it because I feel like God is asking me to and I want to be obedient? Am I doing this with God’s praise in mind (John 12:43)? Or am I doing it in the hopes that this time it will finally make me enough to sit at those same tables where no one could be bothered to scoot down and make room for me in the first place?

Let’s stop putting our worth in the hands of people who can’t be bothered to notice. If we are going to get free of this addiction to achieving, we cannot do it by allowing other people’s version of success to dictate our own.

Today, I want you to recognize your success meter for what it might actually be: the checklist of somebody else’s dream. Take a deep breath and ask yourself . . . what does success actually look like for me?

God, thank you that you have a plan for our lives that has absolutely nothing to do with people-pleasing or attempting to earn our worth in other people’s eyes. Help us to see exactly how empty these very full to-do lists of ours have become. Amen.