How exactly does one measure success? Obviously when we arrive in heaven we’ll find out how successful we were, but here on earth, what yardstick can be used? Well, Luke 12:48b gets me thinking…
From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
Given much? Much what? Money/wealth, knowledge, wisdom, spiritual blessings, physical abilities…? What this verse seems to be saying, correct me if I’m wrong, is that what we are required to do in life is directly proportional to what we have been blessed with. For example:
Bob’s only skill is cleaning chimneys really darn well, for him to be successful in life one needs to measure how clean those chimneys are. Billy on the other hand has inherited a ton of wealth and is really smart. Success for him would mean utilising his wealth and brains to achieve proportionally more than what Bob did with the less glamorous skill of cleaning. Get what I’m sayin? So, if Bob’s chimneys are spotless and Billy has managed to maintain his current status of wealth. Then who’s more successful? Obviously everyone who see’s Billy will label him a ‘success’ and Bob a ‘failure’, but in reality it is the other way around. Bob has achieved all that he could, Billy did not move an inch.
So, to me the obvious conclusion to my initial question is: Success is directly proportional to our utilisation of what has been given to us. Yet somehow this definition feels incomplete, in-fact, i get the feeling that I’ve only scraped the surface of understanding true success…even so, the implications here for you and I are huge.
Great post, this is such an undervalued verse. It definitely hit me this morning; I think that too often we think that because we're talented in some areas it somehow gives us the right to "take it easy," while actually the opposite is required.
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