What is success? What is failure? Are any of us failures? The way the world sees success and failure is quite different from the ways of God. God created everyone for success. God did not create anyone for failure. But what do success and failure really mean? For most people, as for James and John in today’s Gospel, success means to be the best. To succeed means to excel. Success is measured by comparing one’s achievements against the achievements of one’s “competitors.” However, in today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us a new understanding of success.
For Jesus success means people realising and fulfilling God’s dream for them. Does this mean that God has already determined the outcome of our earthly existence? No. God has an intended destination for which He created you and me. But whether you and I attain this destination or not depends on how much we are willing to cooperate with God’s grace. God gives us free will to choose to cooperate or not.
James and John, on the other hand, represent an earthly understanding of success that encourages ambition, rivalry and unhealthy competition among people. We call such success the rat race, or as some may say, it is a dog eat dog world. On the other hand, Jesus teaches a different kind of success, which encourages mutual cooperation and contentment of realising that we can all be successful because God has created each and every one of us for something different. God has enough dreams to go round, a different dream for everyone, a different success for everyone. Our ambition in life should be to discover and live God’s dream for us.
At the end of the day, are we still seeking success here on earth? Or have we started to seek the kind of success that God has planned for each of us, different though it may be according to each person, but success all the same? May we be willing and humble enough to let go of temporary success, for the kind success which is permanent and eternal.