Success and Failure

You know the story by now of John Chau. He was a young man who fervently intended to take the gospel to a group of people on a remote island who had never heard it. He wanted to "evangelize" them -- to take them the good news. From all indications, he failed ... miserably. He visited once, escaped with his life, went back the next day, and did not escape with his life. There was no reason to believe he brought them the gospel and we're quite sure he didn't survive the encounter. Failure. Right?

We're pretty confident we know what "success" and "failure" mean, but I'm pretty confident we're often wrong. The way we measure success and failure appears often to differ with the way God does. As God clearly indicated, "The LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart" (I Sam 16:7). I'm pretty sure the same is true in success and failure.

Take, for instance, the story of this church I know about. A young itinerant preacher came on the scene. He made a bit of a splash. He was unusual in his presentation and in his words. He gathered several followers and began his "mission". He had healing skills and could do some reportedly remarkable things. Within a year he had growing crowds coming to hear him preach. Thousands at a time would show up. Right now we would say that this young man was "successful". Soon, however, he ran afoul of the local authorities. They didn't like some of what he said and some of what he did. They started to hound him. At the same time, some of what he said and did started to offend his own followers. He went from a dozen to hundreds to thousands of followers, but when he was arrested, they all fled and he was alone. He was taken into custody and summarily executed. At this point, we'd say that this young man was a "failure" and his movement a bust.

I am, of course, speaking about Christ. He didn't meet our expectations of "success" and "failure". But there isn't the slightest question as to the success of His mission. Though it cost Him His life, that cost was His absolute success. We, you see, are the ones who are confused about success and failure.

We continue to mess this up. We tend to think that a successful church is a big church. Not necessarily (even likely) so. We tend to think that the missionary who dies without sharing the gospel with one person was a failure. Not necessarily so. We tend to think that if we aren't in the front of things in ministry or service, we're not successful. Not necessarily so (1 Cor 12:1-27). Perhaps we would do well to serve our Master where He puts us and accept from Him the success He gives us and call that "sufficient" instead of some other, unnecessary measurements we try that don't really measure anything God cares about.