The Demands of Success as a Good Christian

Is this going to be one of those "secrets to success" type of posts? You bet! I hope you find at least one small gem that will help you in your faith. I know that these reflections have always helped me become just a little better.

There are 2 words that come to mind when striving for success: Patience and Perseverance. With patience and perseverance, you'll find a lot of balance. Of the two, I find that perseverance is more important, and can help in growing in patience. After all, practice in patience for the impatient (like me) requires perseverance.

The Book of James helps us see this: Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. -James (1:2-4, NABRE)

Overall, the Book of James helps us to understand how God wants us to live in this day and age. To me, I see that he is elaborating the words of Jesus for us to understand how they could fit into our lives today. He is very practical in this way, and hopes to help us apply these teachings so we can live good Christian lives.

We are bombarded with secular desires every single day. We're troubled by various things throughout our lives - our finances, our jobs, our families, our friends, our communities, etc. For the vast majority of us, it's difficult to find some reprieve to give us time to reflect on the Bible and its teachings. I think the reason why I like James and this passage so much is because he's very encouraging in his reminder - and the fact of the matter is, his words can be applied to both our spiritual lives as well as our secular lives.

He's asking us to re-frame our minds: Consider it all joy when you encounter trials. Think of the good that can come those trials; the perseverance that you are strengthening each time you succeed. As Christians, of course we can see that he's talking about our faith in God, but it doesn't mean we stop this positive mindset there. When we are intentional about our spiritual lives, it's only natural that it spills into our secular lives. James simply reminds us that the testing of our faith produces perseverance. When we master ourselves in that way, we will find that our perseverance will help us be "perfect and complete." It's tough to see the good in each little difficulty that comes into our lives, and especially difficult to see it when devastating trials come upon us. We must build up our resilience and our perseverance through the trials presented to us each day.

So here's where we stand on this: it sounds easy enough, but it's incredibly difficult to be consistently strong where it really matters. Our spirituality is tested every single day and our worldly attachments constantly pull us away from God. When we decide to consciously persevere each day, we are strengthened in our spirituality. I say it specifically this way because being intentional about how we persevere is incredibly important - we have a choice in the matter.

Each evening, I have a goal of reading the mass Reading(s), Psalms, and the Gospel before I go to sleep. I want to get better at building this habit, but I don't always do it. In fact, I was doing my best during Lent (when I originally started) but doing it consistently each day and each week is difficult for me. I often find myself in bed, ready to go to sleep, and remembering that I haven't reached my daily goal. I resist the temptation to just go to sleep and pull up the USCCB website and make sure I meet my goal before I fall asleep. And occasionally, when I completely forget, I make sure I read it the next day. I have to make this conscious decision because it's easy to just go to sleep and save it for another day. However, my desire is to read each day and reflect on those readings at least a little bit so I can understand the words of God better. Though it's a relatively easy "trial" for me each evening, every day is a little different, but I know my perseverance is well worth it. If I can consistently read the words of God each day, then it sets me up for success in everything else I do!

I believe that our exercises in perseverance is like a muscle. It certainly makes life easier to endure when you've got a lot of practice. Our perseverance naturally strengthens our patience. I truly believe we are meant to be more and to do better every day. Let's try to get a little better each and every single day and be intentional about it. My hope is that with an intentional focus on patience and perseverance, we will find success in this world and God will judge us accordingly in the next. What have you been working on? Is it something small like I've been working on? Or something much bigger? We'd love to hear about it!

Cheers,

Mr. K

P.S. Please feel free to reach out and send us a note at faithandfi@gmail.com.