Re-Defining Success:: Finding New Hope

Copyright © 2013, 2014 James D Morrison, MSL..

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James D Morrison, MSL

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-0128-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0129-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0127-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912250

WestBow Press rev. date: 9/18/2014

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter One It’s Truly An Adventure

Chapter Two Defining Moment

Chapter Three Letting Go Of Your Past

Chapter Four Your Present, Your Now

Chapter Five Training Ground

Chapter Six Interests, Aptitudes And Skills

Chapter Seven Seeing Your Success Through Jesus

Chapter Eight Relationship Responsibilities

Chapter Nine God’s Plan For You

Chapter Ten Incorporating God’s Plan Into Your Day

Chapter Eleven God’s Expectation Of You

Chapter Twelve The Other Shoe

Chapter Thirteen Up Close And Personal With God

Chapter Fourteen Trusting God’s Plan

Chapter Fifteen Jump Into Your Future!!

References

About the Author

Acknowledgements

F irst, and foremost, I want to praise God for using me to write this book. He has shown me, grown me, developed me, and restored me. And that doesn’t even begin to say how thankful I am to Him for molding me into the man I am today.

Secondly, I want to thank the following people for their influence and/or friendship in my life. My thanks go out (in no order of importance) to: Dave Tough, Peter Stuart, John Benny Depoyster, Mark Morrison, Steve Elston, MD, Steve Freeman, PhD., Jason Graham, Karen Connelly, Sandra Clements, Bob Nelson, Kathy Embry, pastor Stu Hodges of Water’s Edge Church, Larry and Suzanne Duett, pastors Steve and Mindy Hardwick, Eric Grindeland, Scott McRae, pastor Scott Randlett of Dan River Church, Tammy Jewell, Alex, Anthony & Wilma Scott, Kevin Pound, Steve Wicks, Jimmy and Mindy Osteen, and David & Barbara Dennis.

I also want to acknowledge the professionalism and guidance of the staff at Westbow Press: Amanda Parsons, Paul Hatley, Andrew Carter, Kathy Lester, and the unknown others who helped this book come to fruition.

Last of all, but not least, many thanks to Susan Morrison for her role as my cheerleader and for her assistance in various stages of Re-Defining Success: Finding New Hope.

In Christ,

James

Dedication

To you from me by Him

Foreword

Let’s cut to the chase: You, or someone who loves you, decided that this book can help you navigate through some rough patches in your life. As this book has been written, I have been praying for you. I have been specifically praying that God would use the different learning opportunities throughout this work to help you, as the various learning opportunities have helped me. I hope you share the excitement in learning about God’s plan for you.

What does re-defining success mean? It means choosing to view your life through God’s plan for you rather than through your plan for you. Do you believe that God has a plan for your life? Do you know what that plan is? If you don’t, are you willing to open your heart for some input from God?

The purpose of this book is to help you understand re-defining success through seeing that:

1.  God has a great plan for you;

2.  God longs for your company and He wants to share His plan for you with you;

3.  God intends for you to use the aptitude and skills He has given you to fulfill the plan He has designed for you, and that

4.  God wants to develop a relationship with you that has an open line of communication between you and Him through Jesus.

All names of people (other than the author) used in examples throughout the book have been changed, as have places and times. There in not any endorsement or implied relationship between the author and any celebrity mentioned in this book.

The purpose of the various examples is to provide a common ground, a thread of similarity, and so you realize that we all go through similar situations and challenges—just different faces, different places, and different names.

I challenge you to start thinking outside of a socially normal perspective of God, and realize that God cannot be boxed in. He is so much bigger and more majestic than you and I can imagine. I challenge you to be an active participant in God’s plan for your life and to re-define success.

In Christ,

James

Introduction

Everyone has made poor decisions at a point in their life. You have probably walked away from God at some point in your life—I know I have.

You may be in a situation with your marriage that you didn’t think you would be in before. Or have a dilemma at work that is troubling you. Or have been looking for work, unable to find a job. Or a legal confrontation with a negative outcome, or unknown cost.

Be forewarned: There is not any sugar-coating of life in this book.

The intention of this book is not to solve the problems you have in life, but to help you see that there is a much bigger plan for your life and that God has the steps to solve those problems. You will have the opportunity to bare your soul to yourself and God, with the realization that it can get a whole lot better than it is right now. You are the only one who can decide where you are going, and how you are going to get there.

Are you ready for a stark truth?

Becoming as successful as you can be in God’s plan will be much more fulfilling than being successful in anyone else’s plan.

My prayer is that God uses Re-Defining Success: Finding New Hope to help you make the best decisions for you.

CHAPTER ONE

It’s Truly an Adventure

In this adventure called your life, you can begin to see yourself differently than you have seen yourself before. There may not be lions and tigers in this adventure, but you can have some clear realizations about who you are, who you were, and who you want to be. Every person is designed by God with certain aptitudes, certain skills, and a certain culture, or home-environment with specific customs and habits in which they grew up. You are blessed with the opportunity to live and become as successful as is possible within your potential.

You will realize that no one is more successful than you—other people may do something better than you, or be credited with having accomplished more, but that does not make them more successful than you. It is your perspective and opinion of you that weighs you down. Your perspective and opinion can cause you to compare your successes to someone else’s successes, but that’s comparing apples to oranges. Your standards should not be limited by another person’s successes. Let them have their accomplishments and be happy for them. Your standard can be based on what God says is important, rather than what John Doe says is important.

Hopefully, your adventure through Re-Defining Success: Finding New Hope is an adventure filled with introspection, revelation, prayer, redemption, and discovery.

In Matthew 13:1-23, Jesus tells a parable that is appropriate to this book. It is about a farmer who scatters seed, and some of it goes onto soft, fertile ground, some into the weeds, some into the thorns, and some onto a beaten path. Some people are going to be completely changed after they realize how much God loves them and choose to incorporate God into their lives (the seed onto fertile ground); some might agree with it and work to have a revitalized walk with Jesus but become distracted and do not continue their walk with the Lord (seed falling among the weeds); some might view it as a book that has some great points, but requires too much energy to achieve the desired result (seeds falling into thorns), while others will think this book is a waste of time.

Homeless

Over the course of two years (October 2010 to October 2012), I made enough poor decisions to become jobless, divorced, and homeless. The worst decision I made, however, was the decision to challenge God’s authority through my lifestyle. It is my fervent hope that the time you spend reading this book will help you make wiser decisions in your future.

(Before we continue, you need to understand this: You are not in the situation you are in solely because you made bad decisions. You are in whatever situation you are in because God wants your attention, and has allowed you to make decisions and then try to fix the mistakes on your own. Now, you are where you are.)

As a child of God, you are going through circumstances, trials, challenges and problems, for the purpose of developing your character and growing closer to Him. You are going through those problems in order to shape your character into the likeness of Jesus, and to learn that you can rely on God to help you solve your problems.

Your character can be called the nucleus, or the center, of the person you are. It is formed from what you have learned from your parents and friends, what you have gained from decisions you make about different situations and from your emotions, knowledge, and education. The background experiences you have had are also what creates the filters you use as you go into each circumstance. The way each person chooses to deal with those challenges is what defines their character. Simply put, character is the part of you and me that is the morality, or the integrity, honesty, virtue, and other spiritual characteristics that make you into the person you are.

Look at your character from this perspective—when you die, your character is what represents you in the spiritual world. You are designed by God, and your character is being developed through the trials and challenges that He allows you to encounter. Most of us know that troubles, or trials and hardships, are going to happen. God only provides the trials and hardships to those He loves, and you, my friend, are loved. These are not situations to fear or dread—God wouldn’t provide them for us if He didn’t love us. You may not have thought that your character was important, but it is the part of you that you will be remembered by when you were here on earth, as in, she is always so honest, they were racist!, or he is not fair to some people, she was always flirty, even though she was married.

God’s Glory in All Things

You have had stuff happen in your life that you do not understand why it happened.

The one thing I had to realize is that it doesn’t matter why those trials and storms happened. What matters is how you react to those trials and storms in life. Your reaction to circumstances and problems matters because your reaction is the evidence of your character.

God takes us through the storms of life to teach us that we can rely on Him. The storms of life that are being referred to can be any situation that causes you stress. It can be a small stress, like a flat tire on the freeway, or a big stress like getting fired when you get to the job that you were late to because of the flat tire on the freeway. It can be a the small stress you get when you open the door to meet your daughter’s date, or the big stress you get when you open the door to meet your daughter’s date, but also the father of your un-born grandson.

The storms of life include: divorce, credit-card debt counseling, house/property foreclosure, failed romances, bankruptcy, job loss, health issues, and/or times of unemployment plus many, many more. If you would like, God can help you see your life from His perspective and show you the steps through which He has taken you.

In short, the challenges that are within your circumstances can result in a change of perspective about control, goals, priorities, and can result in a change of perspective about other people and what they mean to you.

God shows that He loves you in letting you go through hardships. In Hebrews 12:11, the apostle Paul writes: No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Regardless of whether you live life as a Christian, a Muslim, a follower of Buddha, an atheist, a follower of Satan, or any other theistic belief system, your life will be filled with problems. It is just that way. Sometimes those trials will be financial, sometimes emotional, sometimes relational, sometimes intellectual, and many times a mix of several types of trials—but always spiritual. Each trial you go through is for the purpose of shaping your character into a more Godly person and as your character is developed, you have more peace in your spirit.

Your character is in the spiritual realm, and your character is always being developed. You get to decide how you are going to react to those trials and what is going to be your focus—either the circumstance, or your relationship with God. God wants you to realize that He is the provider of everything you need. And God will use whatever circumstance He sees fit to get your attention.

There is an inversely proportional formula that I have seen: the further you move from God, the harder He will pull on your chain to bring you back in line. Your chain is whatever presses your buttons. Might be finances, might be health issues, might be relationships, might be an addiction. This is your life and there are two that know what your life is all about—you and God.

Man’s arrogance

The plan is God’s plan, and the timing is God’s timing for His plan to happen. When you decide that you have a better plan than God, when you decide that you are not happy with the speed God is using to solve your problems, when you become impatient with God’s plan, then you are on thin ice. When you push ahead, sometimes your impatience pushes you into unemployment, financial stress, relationship despair, or worse.

If you choose to butt your head with God, there is going to be loss on your end. You may have experienced this loss, or feeling of separation from God, and hopefully you realize that you made the mistake.

There are three things to understand at some point:

1.  God’s plan will is going to happen. One might say that God is going to win, but to win, there must be a competition. God is not competing with you. When you go against the Lord, it is rebellion. It is not a situation where there will be a winner and a loser—God will not compete with you.

2.  God has a plan for you that is His plan for you. This plan is going to be something you like doing, something that God has designed for you, and you will be able to succeed to a point because of your decision to work to reach your goal/career/occupation/level of satisfaction. (Please understand that if you are in God’s will, your mindset will be like Christ, and what He has planned for you to do is what you will want to do because you want to follow His guidance and, therefore, to do His will.)

3.  There will still be hard work involved in God’s plan for you even though you are in His plan. Part of this hard work will be in the form of continued changes God has designed for you. Since you have decided to submit to God’s guidance for your life, you will be that much more able to be molded into the person He has planned for you to become.

Mankind is selfish. Beginning with Eve, mankind shows selfishness in wanting to become like God. In Genesis 11:1-4, humankind showed their interest in being equal to God again by attempting to build a tower to the Heavens.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3They said to each other, Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.

God created you and me to have a relationship with Him. He did not create us to make a name for ourselves or to challenge Him. As God made you in His image, you are an intelligent being. Mankind showed their intelligence and proactive thinking in the way they had learned to use tar for mortar and bricks that were shaped and baked for construction, instead of using stones. There were not any findings to base their discoveries on—just the initiative and ingenuity God placed in the men who were building the city.

God saw the city and tower that was being built for what it was—an attempt to reach the heavens, to become like God. In Genesis 11:5-9, But the Lord came down [from heaven] to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6The Lord said, If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. 8So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9That is why it was called Babel—because the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. [Brackets mine]

The end result? The single-language community that had descended from the three sons of Noah were scattered throughout the earth to form many nations with many languages.

I’m not that Selfish!

Each step you have taken away from God has been a step of selfishness. Each step away from God means that you are hanging on to your rights and to the freedom you have to act out those rights. Each step away from God also shows Him that those rights and freedoms are more important to you than your relationship with Him. During your time of learning to live life within God’s plan for you, your decisions can become more like decisions He would make. As you mature spiritually, God may very well show you how He is changing your perspective about Him, as well as the way you deal with your problems differently.

In my sprint towards my perceived happiness with my rights and freedoms, I fought to get all of the pleasure I wanted and that I felt like I deserved. And in God’s Majesty and all-knowing wisdom, He let me do my own thing. And He let me fail miserably. God’s willingness to accept my decisions that were rebellious against His plan showed me that He loves me, but the consequences for my choices have been hard for me to work through as God develops my character.

You can do the same thing and God will still love you. He will still welcome you with open arms tomorrow as He will now. But you may have created consequences for your future through your actions of yesterday (actions of your past), and you will come to a point of decision. At that point of decision, you will need to decide what is important to you—struggling to have your way with all the freedoms and rights, or living in His will with all the freedoms and rights.

To clarify— just because you have the freedom to do something does not mean that you have to do it. Your freedoms are from God, but every choice has at least one opposite choice for you to decide between. You have the freedom to live for God, to live fully and without remorse, or you can go your own way, which will be a life that has the same old tunnel-vision drudgery day after day. Regardless of how much excitement you have through fast cars, drugs, alcohol, pornography, or other vices, you still have to deal with the consequences, which are included in the fine print of your freedoms and rights.

As you live in God’s will, you become closer to Him and you can realize that your choices are made with His help. I continue to have success in my life and I am learning to live more for Jesus. His hand is visible in my life and I choose to complete His plan for me.

Tangible

Part of the problem people have with Christianity is a lack of tangibility. There is not an assurance of God’s existence without taking the Bible at face-value and choosing to believe it. Faith is not concrete, therefore it is not tangible. There are people who don’t even have the faith to believe there is a God, much less ask Him to show them who Jesus is. You must have faith to complete the connection between you and God. Hebrews 11:1 says, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

As you can see, believing in a plan that is specific to you and being expected to believe in a God that you can’t see is preposterous without faith.

God has created you and He has chosen you and has written a plan for your life. You have chosen to open your heart to God’s plan for you and have demonstrated this choice through your interest in learning about His plan for your life. Some people have not chosen to be open to God’s will, and some will not be open to God’s will because they do not believe Him, or even believe in Him.

In 1st Corinthians 1:21-25, the apostle Paul says: For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Paul, in his letter to the church at Corinth, has just told his fellow Christians that both Jews and Gentiles will hear the preaching of Christ, and people of both Jewish and Gentile culture will accept the word of God as truth. However, some people who hear the word of God will not believe because they want tangible proof of God’s existence, and that’s where faith comes in.

The Other Part of the Problem

The other part of the problem that people (Group A) have a problem with Christianity is other people (Group B). It is easy to think that the second group (Group B) are hypocrites because the second group attests to being Christians, but live a lot like non-Christians. They can talk up a storm, but their actions speak differently than their words.

But the first group (Group A) doesn’t see their own lifestyle as being hypocritical because there is not anything wrong with their lifestyle, right? They follow the Golden Rule and everything. It may sound crazy, but we (Group A) all tend to compare ourselves to other people (Group B), and even think, if those other people say that they are Christians but live worse than I do, what is the big deal in being a Christian? Isn’t being a Christian just about following a bunch of rules that are designed to keep my libido in check and to stifle my party-sense? That sounds like a true kill-joy. Why should I even want to be a Christian?

Being a Christian is not a religion as much as is it is a lifestyle. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Jesus expects you to live a lifestyle that honors God through following what God has planned for you. In verse 28, Jesus offers to make your emotional burden and weariness to become less. He is talking about emotions as He refers to His gentleness and having a humble heart. A person with a humble heart does not think that he or she is better than other people. When you choose to learn about Jesus and about His will in your life, you will begin to see yourself as less important and God’s will as more important. That is the lifestyle of a Christian.

Rejection

There are people who have rejected the teaching of the Bible, citing all sorts of reasons for their rationale, including secular theologies. You might have picked up this book and thought, Whatever… with a cynical sneer. If you read on, you will see that there are people who are not going to live for eternity with Jesus Christ in the presence of God.

In each person’s lifespan on this earth, they are able to decide if they are successful, what makes them successful, and how to become more successful. Some of those people become successful in their own eyes and figure that they have done it all on their own. They choose to reject the idea that there is a plan that God has for them. Others continue their search because they realize that they don’t have it all together, but cannot put their finger on what they are missing.

The apostle Paul writes, in 2nd Corinthians 4:1-6, Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

In verse 3: And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. When something is ‘veiled’ the item behind the veil, like a bride’s face, cannot be seen clearly. In this scripture, Paul is referring to the gospel of Christ as being veiled to some people, saying some people are blinded spiritually and they cannot understand the teachings of the gospel. The reference to "those who are perishing" is about the people who are dead spiritually and are not able to see the significance in having a relationship with Jesus, or the purpose in following God’s plan for their life.

In verse 4 above: The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The ‘god of this age’ being referred to is any god that is in place of the Lord Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, some people figure it out and learn to re-define success, and see their life from a whole new perspective.

So, what is Success?

What defines success to you? Is it having a million dollars? Buying a big house? Sending your children to an Ivy League university? Having enough liquid assets to retire at age forty-five? Is your idea of success wrapped around producing or inventing something, rather than making a pile of cash? Maybe writing a song that you could hear on the radio, television, or in a movie is your idea of success. Maybe the recognition that comes with a Nobel Prize fits your picture of success.

Let’s set up a baseline for re-defining success. First of all, what is success?

Success¹, as defined by Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, is "a: degree or measure of succeeding b: favorable or desired outcome; also: the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence, and also impressive achievement, especially the attainment of fame, wealth, or power"¹.

The following examples are deemed successful, as the people involved accomplished a goal:

The mission to walk on the moon was a great success for NASA in July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong² stepped foot on the moon from the Apollo 11. This feat was both an accomplishment of a favorable or desired outcome, and also the attainment of fame and power.

A success that helped stabilize health in the world was the discovery for the cure of polio by Jonas Salk³ in 1954. The polio cure followed the invention of the incandescent light bulb by Thomas Edison⁴ in 1879, and the telephone was credited to Alexander Graham Bell⁵ in 1876.

There are more stories of success throughout history than you could read about in your lifetime. Everything you use started out as an idea of someone somewhere. The fact that you are probably living in a building with plumbing, running water, and electricity shows the success of a number of people’s ideas.

It might be that the combination of money, function, and the recognition of an accomplishment is your idea of success. You can see that there are different types of success just like there are different opinions about everything. As you take the time to learn how to re-define success, put all those ideals aside for a little while.

Imagine that your plan for life is like a single-serving, single-topping micro-wave pizza, while God’s plan for you is better than a superlarge, super-combo, super-deluxe Chicago-style pizza. Or your plan is like a bologna sandwich, and God’s plan for you is better than a Dagwood Bumstead-styled sandwich (from the comic strip Blondie™). Or your plan is like a container of wine-in-a-box, while God’s plan for you is better than a bottle of Dom Perignon™ champagne. Or, (last one) your plan is like a chicken-pot pie and God’s plan for you is better than Thanksgiving dinner buffet at the Waldorf-Astoria™ hotel. Getting the picture? And it gets better. (If you need to take a break and get a snack, go ahead, but hurry back!)

There is already a plan for success for you to follow in your life. That plan was created by God. You can be successful in His plan and see your life’s successes differently than you do now by changing your outlook from a me-centered lifestyle to a Christ-centered lifestyle. You have the opportunity to