Success is…

[The Wilde family – Jason, Jessica and their kids Grace, Brecklyn, Alex, and Chi Yu – have joined the Intake class of 2017 and are currently in missionary training with FMC.]

Getting a degree
Finding a wife
Finding a job
Buying a house
Having a kid
Getting a graduate degree
Getting a promotion and a raise
Buying a new car
Opening an investment account
Having another kid (or two)
Becoming a doctor
Buying a bigger car
Finding a bigger house
Losing 40 pounds
Traveling
Feet in the Sand
Making 6 figures
Feeling comfortable
Paying off the car
Having friends
Not worrying about money, but thinking about it all the time.
Living the American dream

Then why is it that I sit in our empty bedroom, staring at the air mattress on the floor, feeling happy and at peace? I had it all, a textbook success story. No worries, Life is Good, Golden Happiness…so why does it feel like such a relief to give it all up?

Tonight we opened our last bottle of wine – a bottle that had quietly sat on the top of our mantle for the past few years as a celebratory goal, a trophy that was to be enjoyed whenever we reached the threshold at which I could retire from my engineering career and…well…do something else. Little did I know that this “something else” would come so soon, and that it would involve literally giving up everything we had thought made us successful (except the kids and wife, of course). Would I have believed if I knew my next employer’s benefit plan included eternal success in the form of forgiveness, mercy, and personal sacrifice? And would I believe that I willingly, joyfully, and happily did it all without second guessing myself?

So, here’s to my failure in the worldly sense, happily conceded for the least of my brothers.
Here’s to constant prayer for someone with an impossible sickness.
Here’s to sacrifice so that I can provide clothes for someone else.
Here’s to the fear that I must fight in order to welcome the stranger.
Here’s to the sickness that I will feel when I see the hungry child suffering.
And sadness when I see the tortured prisoner from the other side of the bars.

For I know that eternal success lies beyond our flesh, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where my treasure is, there also will my heart be. – Mt 6:20-21