The Purpose of Success
“Deal bountifully with Your servant that I may live and keep Your word” Psalm 119:17
The Purpose of Success
Bountifully – Everyone wants to be successful. But few people understand the purpose of success. Most suppose that success should bring a good and comfortable life filled with happiness and peace. After all, that’s the American dream, isn’t it? From this perspective, success is about completing my agenda. How often we pray, “Lord, help me with my plans.” That prayer simply reflects a deep cultural belief that the end of my efforts must be the accomplishment of my goals.
If we look at the world through the eyes of the Psalms, we see a different purpose. First we discover the two parts of life’s success formula: God watches over us and we watch over His word. That should have given us a clue about purpose. But just in case we missed it, David spells it out in this verse. “Lord, grant me favor so that:
- I may draw the next breath of life, and
- I may continue to obey You
That’s it! The purpose of success is obedience. Not wealth, not possessions, not comfort, not peace. Those may come as by-products of obedience, but they are not the goal. The end of the rainbow is obedience. “Lord, let me go on living so that I may continue to serve You.” The Hebrew word here is gamal. It conveys the idea of recompense. The context shows us if the reward is for good or evil. David cries out to God, “Grant me your favor in order that I may serve You”. David knows that life itself is God’s gift. It follows that everything else is also His gift and insofar as God gives bountifully, all that He gives is intended to bring me into deeper communion with Him and greater commitment to His ways. Bountiful living is obediently experiencing God.
We need to make a serious adjustment to our definition of success. Can you say, “My life is successful. I am obeying the Lord each day”? Or do you stumble over that thought, mixing this world’s ideas of success with God’s view of obedience? Can you take an accounting of your life and see black ink entries on the obedience side of the ledger? Does that make you feel successful? Or are you still struggling with the new media portrayal of the “good life”?
The Biblical success formula for living is simple. The purpose is also simple. Life revolves around our connection to God. Not managing that is disaster no matter what we accumulate along the way.
