Tag Archives: success

What We Really Want Is Counterintuitive

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - What We Really Want Is Counterintuitive An image depicting binge watching Netflix with snacks. © 2016 Photo Copyright trex.okiaru

What is good and satisfying is counterintuitive.

Can I be real for a moment?

I never want to go and visit a brother or sister, but I leave with such joy.

I never want to pick up the phone and talk with a beloved, but I’m always glad I did.

I never want to be bothered with what other people are struggling with. I’ve got my own problems. But, service gives me life.

The inclination when I’m tired or dejected is to do something for myself: to take “me time”, to largely abandon consideration of others and to attempt to gratify myself by eating something tasty, binge watching TV, etcetera, etcetera.

More often than not, it leaves me emptier than I was before.

But urgings of the Holy Spirit that, in my flesh, I thought would have been burdensome, in truth, turn out to be the very things that energize me!

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”
— 1 John 5:3

This is not something that naturally occurs to me. I only come to the knowledge of this truth when I obey.

A wonderful example of this is in John 4 where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. He’s tired and hungry. His disciples go and buy food. They bring it to Him, urging Jesus to eat but He was so excited by sharing Life, His response was, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” — John 4:34

This is what I glean from this:

Am I hungry? Is my soul weary and need refreshment?

To be filled, I’ve got to eat and Jesus shows that eating is obedience.

Eating is to do the will of God and to participate in His work.

That’s fulfilling.

This is not apparent to the natural man. I must trust and obey, exercising myself into godliness (1 Timothy 4:7).

That’s where I will find the rest and refreshment that my soul truly desires.

Success

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Success Is Contribution Not Conceit

If I can be honest, I struggle mightily with this.

I struggle with the constant pressure of the world’s repeated assertion that success means being out in front, on display, exalted above others, and if you’re not, you’re a failure.

The constant temptation is to seek that, to make it my ambition and orient my life around what puts me out in front; hustle, grind, concentrate on achieving the thing or making the money to buy the things that makes me better than others, thereby proving that I am a success.

But, in God’s creation, success is the health of the whole that we’re connected to, where we’re one member of many, contributing to the whole as the whole contributes to the members. It’s literally what we’re built for: connection, community, and contributing toward its betterment which is one and the same as self-care. We know this. We can feel it. It’s what we find most fulfilling.

Yet, I find myself desiring the allure of being the dead flower in the vase. It is singled out and put beautifully on display.

And my flesh foolishly yearns, “Ooh, pick me! Pick me!” I want to be exalted. I want to be praised. I want to be sought after. Not realizing that it neither grows others nor is being grown and was dead the moment it was separated.

Do not be deceived. Satan’s specialty is creating beautiful dead things.

Those of The Way know to be cut off is a death sentence. Oneness is our pursuit.

“Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.”
— Mark 12:29

And, whatever comes our way as an individual, including honor, we use for the benefit and uplift of the whole (One).

“For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.

[…] But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”
— 1 Corinthians 12:12, 24-26

So, each day I wake or every time I fell pressure to conform to the world’s measure of success, I will set out with intention to resist the world’s way and to seek contribution as a definition of success instead of conceit, success being evidenced by fruit in others.

#success #ContributionOverConceit #thriveday