Growing up I had a little brother. He was always smaller than me, and I could beat him up. He looked up to me and feared me all at the same time, it was awesome!
Being his big brother, I always thought that I would naturally be better than him at everything, nevertheless, that was not the case! As it turned out, he was better than me at everything! I struggled in school, everything was difficult for me, but for Gary, school was easy, and he excelled. I wanted so bad to be an athlete, but I was slow, uncoordinated and lacked talent. Gary was a gifted athlete, he could run, hit, catch, shoot, everything! All this I took in stride until high school.
My mom, after much pestering, finally enrolled us both in karate. I thought I found my calling! My life purpose! However, as things typically went, Gary was just naturally better, and it made me mad. I became jealous of my brother and I began to resent him. It was bad. He was my little brother and I was envious of him.
Often times I live with this monster inside of me. Its name is Pride. I look around at my peers and I see what they are doing and what I am not doing, and I become envious. I will say things to myself like, “Really? Him? I remember him, he wasn’t that great! Why him? I am way better than that guy!” and before you know it, I am obsessing over my brother, resenting him, and wondering why I am not in his position. Sadly, these are the things that will keep me up at night.
Last week I talked about our "real life." We have this ideal of what success is, sold to us by our culture, and when we have not achieved it, we feel like failures. However my point was that we need to begin looking around us and redefining what success is. And in order to do that, the first step we must take is to let it go. "Let it go, and so, to find way to let it go."
We allow jealousy, envy, and covetousness, lust, rivalry, anger, and divisions to come into our lives, and they dominate our thoughts, our actions, and our feelings. They disrupt relationships, cause strife, and lead to hatred. This is the path to destruction, and can lead to ruin. The bible has much to say on this:
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
(Galatians 5:19-26 ESV)
A long time ago I had to make a choice. I could choose to resent my brother and his success, thus killing our relationship (much as Cain did!), or I could let it go and become my brother's biggest fan. Support him, help him to achieve what he was so good at. In short, I could hate him or love him. In the end, I chose to love him.
Perhaps there is someone in your life, a brother, sister, spouse, friend, co-worker, peer, someone who seems to get all the breaks, and meanwhile you sit on the sidelines. They get the glory, you go unnoticed. You have two choices, you can continue the path of envy and hatred, and thus fall into ruin. Or you could let it go and choose to love them.
Here is the deal, success isn't about how well you are known, or how much money you make, or about how the world sees you. Success is you daily dying to yourself, overcoming the flesh and living in the Spirit. We do this by letting go of the bad, and embracing the good! As Bono says, we need to find away, and wake up to our "real life!"
Peace and love,
Steve
We allow jealousy, envy, and covetousness, lust, rivalry, anger, and divisions to come into our lives, and they dominate our thoughts, our actions, and our feelings. They disrupt relationships, cause strife, and lead to hatred. This is the path to destruction, and can lead to ruin. The bible has much to say on this:
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
(Galatians 5:19-26 ESV)
A long time ago I had to make a choice. I could choose to resent my brother and his success, thus killing our relationship (much as Cain did!), or I could let it go and become my brother's biggest fan. Support him, help him to achieve what he was so good at. In short, I could hate him or love him. In the end, I chose to love him.
Perhaps there is someone in your life, a brother, sister, spouse, friend, co-worker, peer, someone who seems to get all the breaks, and meanwhile you sit on the sidelines. They get the glory, you go unnoticed. You have two choices, you can continue the path of envy and hatred, and thus fall into ruin. Or you could let it go and choose to love them.
Here is the deal, success isn't about how well you are known, or how much money you make, or about how the world sees you. Success is you daily dying to yourself, overcoming the flesh and living in the Spirit. We do this by letting go of the bad, and embracing the good! As Bono says, we need to find away, and wake up to our "real life!"
Peace and love,
Steve
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