Define success and develop a plan

Warren Buffet:  When you get to my age, you’ll measure success in life by how many of the people you want to love you actually do love you.  The trouble with love is you can’t buy it.  The only way to get love is to be lovable.  The more you give love away, the more you get.

Use an accurate roadmap and follow someone who can lead you to your desired destination

Do not just understand Scripture, obediently follow its instruction (www.prsi.org).

James 1:22 (NLT) Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves, do what it says.  Matthew 7:24 (NLT) Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on a solid rock.

Plato:  Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion and knowledge.

Abide in Jesus and follow Him.

John 8:12 (NLT) Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world.  If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness because you will have light that leads to life.

Don’t Travel Alone

Have close friends where you can be completely transparent and authentic (no secrets).

Hebrews 10:24-25a (NLT) Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another.  Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NLT) A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer.  Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

1. Paul Young (author of The Shack): The shack represents the human heart, the uniquely crafted soul that can so easily be torn from its moorings and left to flounder in the waves of a storm-tossed world. Here we stored our addictions and hid our secrets.  It was the house of shame and pain held together by a webbing of lies and protected buy an ever-growing array of survival skills and defense mechanisms.  Why do we keep our secrets?  Mostly, because we are terrified of losing control, of losing the little bits and scraps of acceptance and approval that we have managed to scrape together through production and performance.  The irony is that relationships will bring us healing, but we don’t trust them.  When someone comes into our lives and they offer genuine love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace—the very things that would heal our hearts—we don’t believe them, because they don’t know the secrets.  We are trapped and as sick as the secrets we keep.  So, what do we do?  We find a way to survive.  We look for ways to kill the pain while maintaining the façade.  If exhaustion and the praise of performance don’t kill the pain, we find other things that will, like prescription drugs, alcohol, pornography, and affairs.

Seek wise advice from coaches, mentors and experts.

Proverbs 15:22 (NIV). Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.  Proverbs 23:12 (NLT) Commit yourself to instruction, listen carefully to words of knowledge.”

Tom Landry:  A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you can be.

Travel lightly

Leave the baggage from your past behind.

Ephesians 4:31-32 (NLT) Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.  Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Rick Warren:  We are products of our past, but not prisoners to our past.

Nelson Mandela:  As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I would still be in prison.

Do not accumulate too much–generously give (www.ilikegiving.org).

1 John 3: 17-18 (NLT) If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion–how can God’s love be in that person?  Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.

Winston Churchill:  We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Take the long, scenic route

Enjoy God’s beauty.

Genesis 1:31 (NLT) Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good.  Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.  Romans 1:20 (NLT) For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky.  Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. 

Travel slowly through every neighborhood

Erwin McManus:  What people really want to know is, “Do you care about me because you have actually met God?”  Because there is no way a person will ever believe Jesus cares about them if people who believe in Jesus don’t care about them.

Endure adversity and persevere

Life will be difficult—adversity will knock on your door

John 16:33 (NIV) I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.

Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe):  How little repining there would be among mankind at any condition of life if people would rather compare their condition with those that were worse, in order to be thankful, than be always comparing them with those which are better, to assist their murmurings and complainings.

Jonathan Edwards:  The way to heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.

Tim Keller:  Jesus lost his glory so that we could be clothed in it.  He was shut out so we could get access.  He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free.  He was cast out so we could approach.  And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you:  that is being cast away from God.  He took that so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great.  A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond.  And the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous.

God does not waste pain—it is used for good

James 1:2-4 (NLT) Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

Greg Murtha:  Without cancer, I would have remained that somber, self-righteous, smug, narrow-minded Christian who turns people off; the Christian who judges instead of loves, clings tightly to the status-quo plan, and thinks he can earn God’s approval.  The Christian who misses the joy of following Jesus the way He intended.  You might say, cancer got me out of my performance-based, fearful existence and into the bigger story, the grand adventure.  I’m thankful God used cancer to save me from myself.  Cancer has sculpted me into someone who understands more deeply, hurts more often, appreciates more quickly, cries more easily, hopes more desperately, loves more openly, and lives more passionately.

Questions to ponder

1. How will you define success in your life? What are the five things you want said about you at your 80^th birthday party (or at the end of your life)?  What would your calendar look like in an ideal week?  How do you decide how to allocate your time each week?
2. Where do you turn to for truth? Can you identify a time in your life when you followed the teaching of Scripture when you did not really want to?  How did it turn out?
3. Who do you call on your worst day? Who have been your closest friends?  What can you do to get to know each other better?  Which friend has had the greatest influence in your life?  What have they done?
4. Describe the two biggest challenges you have experienced in your life. What did they teach you?  Who has been the most difficult person in your life to forgive?  Who in your life do you need to ask to forgive you?
5. Describe a couple people you have met in life whose personal story has expanded your perspective.