Getting There…Wherever There May Be

I recently read some interesting thoughts from the book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. The book basically deals with the delusion of success. People who are successful often end up not being successful later because of how they view their past success.

One of the inaccurate thoughts that successful people often think is that they simply choose to succeed. When a person is mostly successful in life they begin to think that success is simply something they choose. I have to admit that I have struggled with that thought. I am mostly successful yet not splendidly successful. The one place I have struggled with seeing myself as successful is in church planting. The voices around me can say we have been successful but I see so much more out there than we have experienced. The issue I had to realize at some point was that the lack of success in areas I desired for Fellowship were not because I had not chosen them. God blesses churches with different types of “success”. That is his work. When a church plant grows rapidly and wildly it is not because the church planter somehow chose that, it is because God chose that.

What that causes is the need to redefine success. We have to begin seeing success as God sees success. There are certain habits we have to overcome to continue being successful. One of the unhealthy habits was winning too much. It is not that I always win. What struck me was the thought that we try to win when no one is counting. The problem is that some of us are always counting. Another habit is to be a person that always feels the need to defend their position instead of listening. Well if you’re like me, and always right, this habit is hard to break. Another one is speaking while angry. One of the most important bad habits was not listening. We have to listen to learn and we have to learn to continue to be successful.

What I know is this. God has gotten me somewhere and it is a pretty cool place. This cool place, however, will not be cool for long because I am driven to see God do more. The tough truth is that what God did to get me here will not be what he does to get me there, wherever there may be.