At What Price, Success?

A beautiful mosaic we saw in the National Cathedral

"In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity.  The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done. . . . With a frankness and off-handedness which no other earthly power could permit itself, history appeals in its own cause to the dictum that the end justifies the means. . . . The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard."                                         Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Isaiah 53:2, 3

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
   nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
   a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
   he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.  

What will my life, the legacy I leave for my children, say about my definition of success? This is the time to intentionally define it. So that, going forward, it will shape my decisions. 

In this year that the Lord has me focused on Blessing and Being, He has me digging deeply into what I believe and why. To "be still and know that He is God" requires a distillation of self before a Mighty God. To be still before Him for the purpose of refinement and purification necessitates reflection on the motives of my heart. I must not continue to speak what I think I know, or what I think I believe. I must truly Know. Truly Believe.

And as for my definition of success, am I willing to let go of hopes and dreams for the future I would choose? If He asks me to "fail" in the eyes of the world so that He may receive more Glory, what will I answer?