Do your part

I was interviewed for an article with Readers Digest that will be coming out shortly after the first of the year and the writer had some very interesting questions. In most of my prior interviews it seems the writer wanted to focus on the salacious, but this writer was more interested in finding out what motivated me to change and how I overcame the tremendous obstacles that I faced.

Obviously when you sink as low as I sank, it is exceedingly difficult to rise up again, (even if you have finally reached the bottom of the barrel and desperately desire a change in your life). I explained that it is my strong belief that it was God and not me that worked the miracles in my life. Some major events in my life were entirely miraculous and cannot be explained any other way. The writer asked if these incidents could be attributed to “happenstance” or “luck”. I did make it clear that I do not believe in luck, happenstance, or coincidence.

I believe with all of my fiber that God works in our personal lives and I strongly believe that in the transformation of my life that He showed His tremendous miraculous power to transform something badly broken and restore it. I know that God provided me the opportunities and was always there for me when I began to falter and needed to lean upon His strength, but I have also always known that I too had a job to do in shaping my life and was expected by God to do my part.

How did this work? My marriage is a good practical example; my wife and I have been married thirty eight years today. Someone does not stayed married for that long in today’s environment without working at it. I know in my heart that God initially miraculously provided me with the opportunity to meet her. She was a wonderful, stable, and good person and unlike me in that she was very nice and not an alcoholic, nor did she take drugs. There are other practical considerations of being a good match for me, too numerous to relate to you here. I am an idea man and not detail oriented and in fact do not have a detail oriented bone in my body. My wife is just the opposite and loves details like keeping up with and paying our bills on time. She is a great mother, cook, house cleaner, etc. and a bonus, she does not mind washing dishes. She too had a strong work ethic and worked right along side of me in building our various businesses from nothing to something. I will not bore you with further details, but as I look upon it today, she was the absolute perfect match for me. We are compatible and very good friends and she is not demanding and does not smother me and gives me the long lead that I need and vice versa. (Well maybe I am just a tiny bit demanding.)

Why would a good girl want to hook up with someone like me? It was incumbent upon me to act upon the opportunity that God gave me when I met her and use all of my wiles to charm her into believing that I was the man of her dreams. I had just accepted Christ as my Savior, and wanted to change, but it was more mental in the early on and was not really evidenced as much by my life at that point. In short my character was not good and it took years to overcome many of my faults especially my temper. I had to earnestly work on my faults as did she, and we both had to develop patience which was admittedly not easy at all for me. At times we had to yield to our own desires and do what the other party wanted to do. We had to overlook each other’s idiosyncrasies that tend to drive each of us crazy and accept each other’s weaknesses along with our strengths. We would get mad at each other, but we would work it out without giving up. I felt that if necessary we would use guns, knives, fists, or clubs, to settle our disputes, but divorce was simply not an option and she was of the same notion.

Hmmm Just like being successful in one’s career or anything that we want to take on, it takes a strong work ethic and perseverance to succeed, but without God in the mix, it is hopeless. Attitude determines altitude as Zig Ziglar used to say. Success is dependent upon it and it can only come only from God. I believe God provides tremendous hope for anyone, no matter how bad their situation, as evidenced my own life. He presents us with many tremendous opportunities in life, He strengthens us when we get tired of the fight, and He is always there when we need Him. We have to maintain faith in the foregoing and take advantage of those opportunities when they come, work hard, and persevere and not quit when the going starts getting tough as it will most surely do.

The writer asked how I define success. I answered that finding happiness and peace in one’s life is the definition of success. He quizzed me about financial achievements and I scoffed at that. I know many very wealthy people who are miserable and to be miserable is not success as I define it. I know many folks who are not wealthy in finance, but rich beyond measure which can be seen in the glow in their countenance. Money is not an indication that someone is successful. The Bible teaches that one cannot achieve peace, joy and happiness apart from God with or wothout money. I learned that the hard way.

When my life starts turning upside down, I intensify my efforts to draw close to God. I personally hate the feeling of God not being close to me and it happens when I backslide a little or get outside of the will of God and start trying to go my own way.

Are you successful? If you are truly happy and have peace in your life, you are truly successful. Love what you do, love your life, love your wife, love your children, love your hobbies, and most of all love your God and you too will be a huge success, (regardless of the size of your portfolio).

Proverbs 13:7
There is one who makes
himself rich, yet has nothing;
and one who makes himself
poor, yet has great riches.