But using success as a measure has its downside as well. For starters, some things are hard to measure, and so we can be tempted to measure what is easy to gauge. Some education reforms seem to require so much testing (an easy form of measuring) that teachers complain they have no time to teach anything other than test taking skills.
From a spiritual standpoint, the focus on success sometimes forgets that faithfulness does not always lead to what the culture calls success. By our culture's standards, Jesus' life is not a success. He causes a stir, attracts a handful of followers who abandon him when things get tough. And then he is executed. Jesus' faithfulness to his call does not produce easily measurable evidence of success.
Congregations, pastors, and church members can easily gauge themselves "failures" based on not living up to some measure of success. And indeed there are plenty of times when congregational decline is the result of failing to follow God's call. But it is also possible to be faithful and that not lead to more people and increased pledges.
Today's reading from Psalm 119 begins, "Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments." We are God's; we belong to God. In this lies our intrinsic worth, and we honor this when we become what God has made and fashioned us to do and be. Such faithfulness may or may not produce signs our culture deems success. Neither Jeremiah nor Paul - who provide our Old Testament and Epistle reading for today - would have measured up according to many popular gauges of success. Yet God judges them good and faithful servants because they have faithfully carried out their calls.
O God, you have made and fashioned me. Help me to understand my call. Show me the work you have given me to do, that I may be your faithful servant.
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