SUCCESS & FAILURE

This past weekend, the Davidson Episcopal Student Fellowship had a Spring Retreat at the beautiful Lake Logan Episcopal Center in Canton, N.C.  We had fabulous weather that allowed us to take full advantage of the lake (paddleboards and kayaks) and the hiking trails. We were able to enjoy the beauty and wonder of God’s creation, including sitings of a bald eagle that was nesting in one of the trees on the property!

More than being able to enjoy the beauty of the setting, this time away from campus also allowed the students to take a breath and consider the “bigger picture” beyond papers, exams, and grades. It’s these moments of extended time together in a different setting where profound connection and conversation can happen. This was certainly the case this past weekend.

The primary theme of our conversations for this retreat was “Success & Failure from a Christian perspective”.  I invited them to reflect on the messages they have received over the course of their lives about what defines “success”. Then I encouraged them to consider how well those messages align with what they understand the Christian perspective to be on success.  And I reminded them how many of the biblical heroes were people who were not successful in a worldly sense.  As you can imagine, this proved to be a very relevant topic for their current life-context.  They were able to recognize and articulate that there is indeed a dichotomy that exists between the “worldly” definition of success and what our faith tells us true success looks like. 

During this conversation, I shared with them the following words from the alternative General Thanksgiving prayer in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, which is a favorite of mine (and not just because it was written by a professor from my seminary):

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us. We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone. (BCP, p. 836).

I’ve always appreciated how these words reframe how we think about success and failure. Like the Davidson students, we have all received messages about what defines success. Most of those messages tell us that success is primarily about acquisition: of money, status, prestige, power, etc.  The more of these things we have, the more we perceive ourselves as being successful. True success, however, comes when we use our God-given gifts in ways the “satisfy and delight us”, which I’m convinced means that we use them for the well-being of others, as much as ourselves.  And when we fail, as we all do, we can be reminded of our ultimate dependence on God’s love and mercy.  In other words, true success is the fruit of humility and gratitude, rather than that acquisition of things that will not ultimately “satisfy and delight us”. 

Yours in Christ,

Kevin+