Top-Down Success

 

 

I’m wondering if success and joy are closely related.  

 

Think about it.  

 

To work hard toward a goal with dedication and devotion, and ultimately to meet that goal; doesn't it produce in us joy?  Certainly it doesn't produce anything less than joy, and I'm not sure what it may produce that is beyond joy.  

 

A couple years ago I competed in a local marathon.  I had spent nine months preparing; walking, running, lifting, resting. On race day, that finish line was the goal.  Though utterly depleted after 26.2 miles of physical exertion, crossing the line filled me with such great joy it would have been impossible to hide it away.  There was a smile on my face and a skip (or maybe a limp) in my step sourced from something more than a mere choice; like, it was just there?  I finished!  Success!  

 

(That's me in the red.)

Same feeling when we finish a report or a project or a list of long awaited to-do's.

  

Same feeling when we're told to do something and we do it right and do it well.

 

Same feeling for Jesus’ disciples – all seventy-two of them – when they returned from their respective missions having done what they were told. 

 

I’m looking into Luke 10:17-24, in case you want to follow along.

 

Jesus’ disciples had been briefed and prepared.  They had traveled and travailed.  They had overcome all the wiles the way threw at them, and they finished in accord with what was cast before them at the start.  And their final assessment…  

 

“Lord, even the demons

submit to us in your name!”

 

They had gone about, town to town, passing peace and preaching that “the Kingdom of God has come near you.”  People and principalities alike gave in.  And here in these verses, at the finish-line…Success!  

 

The disciples saw results, albeit earthly results.  

 

But Jesus…

 

Jesus saw the cosmic results.

 

“[Jesus] saw Satan fall like lightning” amidst the dedicated and devoted pursuit of these disciples.  They had authority over witchcraft and demon possession, over the fears and terrors that held people captive, and they used that authority to free people and show them Kingdom life.  They were successful.  

 

Jesus says, in effect:  Atta-boy... but take joy in the higher things.  Your names are written in heaven, your lives are eternally secure.

 

Jesus’s point:  From the bottom-up – or from an earthly point of view – you guys succeeded.  From the top down, my Father in heaven succeeded.

 

God the Father had expanded His Kingdom.  He had entrusted His purposes to Jesus – the Son – and then Jesus to the disciples and the disciples to others; ultimately down the timeline to you and to me.  God the Father had hidden and revealed all the right realities from and to just the right people.  And all of it just as according to plan.  Success! 

 

That is success; heavenly success, which produces great joy.  And the blessing that emerges in these moments is greater even than what prophets and kings have known.  Really!  Look at the text!

 

“Blessed are the eyes that see the things you see!  For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see the things you see but didn’t see them; to hear the things you hear but didn’t hear them.” (Luke 10:23-24)

 

That is success.  This is joy friend:  To follow Jesus.  To go where He says and do what he says, and in the going and doing to know that our obedience emboldens our spirit and our faith secures our souls, and that is worth experiencing joy in.