Wineskins Contributor・10/22/18

While society seems inundated with a call to success, many of us seem to be in the wishful hunt.  The very thought, though, remains exciting.  Who would wish to be otherwise?  To be a difference-maker; achieve victory. These can be driving forces.  I possessed such a hunger.  Why did it seem, however, that I had evidently drawn the short straw?  Yet eventually, as if coming over a beautiful horizon, possibility began to open.  What I saw was a great surprise…for all of us.

The secret to success is clearly a spiritual process.  It is easy to assume that any whom we would regard as successful were somehow naturally gifted for such; that they just couldn’t help it.  But, I discovered that this isn’t the case.  The reverse is.  Effective individuals seem to hit upon a range that is, well it’s, like magic.  And, my conclusion is that real God-blessed life is magic in that it cannot be explained; only believed.

Faith, then, is the singular key.  Unfaith seems to keep looking at others in frustrated comparison.  God is clear that living by such is a dead-end alley.  Faith, though, continually anticipates the action of God; to discern what He’s thinking and where He’s taking us.  Such won’t be revealed in sight-form.  It will be assumed within the borders of what isn’t yet; but can and will become.

Christianity has developed an appetite for Bible discussion minus expectation that Its call is for us personally.  We’ve politely taken a back seat to the God-adventure.  Why, we even develop doctrinal arguments to support the idea that direct activity of God has ceased.  And for those who believe this error, it has.  Such suffocates the believer’s heart.

Didn’t one of our favorite prophets insist that where there is no vision that the people would perish?  And, how’s the hunkering down to rehearse the same ol’ same ol’ going for your congregation?  The secret to success is found within the same realm of reality that it’s always been; the magnitude of a people determined to launch into the unknown of potential rather than cowering within the framework of past belief security.  God.  Takes.  His.  People.  Places.

The wonders of the parting of the Red Sea nor the marvels of prison walls tumbling down were not given only for looking back; but are offered to remind us Who knows how to surpass life’s greatest obstacles.  To believe is a present-day robust glory.  Don’t restrict the term, believe, to the second word in the plan of salvation.  Behave, rather, with a faith which dares to break the barriers of eye-fear.  Walk by faith.  Even run by it.

Finally, success isn’t limited to any whom we might be tempted to believe as residing within the upper-class of faith-hood.  Success is for every individual who will dare step out and up while too much of the Christian world would prefer what it regards as safety by not even trying.