What Does it Mean to Be Truly Successful?

Bryan Entzminger: 00:00:00

Today's prompt is, when you think of the word successful, who's the first person that comes to mind and why? The word successful for me immediately brings to mind Warren Buffett. I think this is probably for a few reasons.

The first, and I think probably the most obvious, is he is incredibly wealthy and as near as I can tell, nearly incomparable as an investor who truly understands the fundamentals of what he's doing.

He's old, but he's still skilled and he's still achieving and maintaining success without, at least as far as I know, without exploiting or belittling others.

And I think this stands in stark contrast to some of the other wealthy people who we might see in the news at the time, who are incredibly productive, incredibly wealthy, and also seem to have controversy and division just swirling around them everywhere they go. To be fair, I've never met Warren. I have not researched all that hard, so it's entirely possible that I'm just ill informed.

But that's who I think of. However, when I think of successful and take it a little bit further, I don't think that's enough.

Because most of the things that I've focused on that he's accomplished or that he has will be surrendered when he dies. Nothing that he's done or that he's earned or saved up will go with him. The money will be distributed according to whatever plans he's put in place.

After the government gets their cut, the assets will eventually be sold off or whatever, and the company at some point will almost certainly fail. Because this is the nature of things. This has actually been also coming up in my personal, quiet time.

Over the past few days, I've been reading and reflecting on Ecclesiastes chapter 2, where the teacher considers things like all my toil, which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who comes after me and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. And sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it.

In these, I'm reminded, and I need to be reminded that nothing in this life lasts. We die, we leave things and people behind. None of it can be taken with us when we die.

The only things that last are the investments we've made in God's kingdom. And really those are just the things that we were able to join in with God.

I want to be clear before I go any further, because I don't want to miscommunicate. I don't know Warren or the condition of his soul, so I'm not in any way trying to imply that he's not successful.

Rather, I want to use the contrast between the wealth of the world and the wealth of the kingdom. The wealth of the kingdom is found in the presence of God. It flows out as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self control.

It's in peace, peace and love and joy and hope. It's worked out in the depths of relationship and bearing the burdens of another.

It may not look like the spotlight or a large investment portfolio, or even getting the jobs we want, but the life lived with God is successful no matter what it looks like.