Success might be simpler than you think
You have been sold a definition of success that keeps you tired. Bigger title. Bigger paycheck. Bigger platform. What if success has nothing to do with any of that? On a recent Daron Earlewine Podcast, a guest offered a definition worth sitting with. Success is becoming who God created you to be, then partnering with God to do what he is calling you to do. That is it. Not the promotion. Not the applause. You becoming who you already are, and saying yes to the one who made you.
The power of a default yes
Most of us wait for a burning bush. A sign in the sky. A voice that removes all doubt. The guest on this episode did not get that. He got one surrendered yes at a time. Years back, Daron made the same call and told God the answer was just yes. Default yes. No matter the city, no matter the role, the answer is already on the table. That kind of yes makes the next decision easier, because you already know your answer. You are not negotiating with God every time he moves. You are following. And sometimes following sounds like two quiet words you would never have picked yourself, landing at the exact moment you needed them.
Home is a person, not a place
There is a picture in the book of Numbers that reframes the whole thing. God’s people camped around his presence. When the cloud stayed, they stayed. When it moved, they packed up and moved with it. Three days or three months, they followed. The lesson was not about the tents. It was one question. Will you live in my presence, and go where I go? When you say yes to that, the address stops mattering. Home is not a city or a house. Home is God’s presence. Jesus is home. So you can be sent anywhere and still be home. Where is God asking for your yes today?
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Episode Summary:
A stranger emailed Wayne Jacobson with a claim that sounded like nonsense. The word righteousness is not really in the Bible. It turned out to be a translation problem 500 years in the making.
In this clip, Wayne walks through how one Greek word came to be translated righteousness in our Bibles when it is translated justice everywhere else, and what changes when you put it back.
Key Takeaways
⚡️ Success is becoming who God made you to be, not out-performing the person next to you.
⚡️ God often speaks in words you would never have chosen yourself.
⚡️ Home is not a place on a map. It is the presence of God.
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Links to the Daron Earlewine Podcast
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Libsyn
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Ken: I want to run it by you, this idea of a definition of success. Success as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus. Success being to become who God created me to be, and then partner with God to do what God’s calling you to do.
Daron: Love it.
Ken: Success is, I’m discovering and walking, becoming the person God created me to be, and I’m now learning to partner with God and do what he calls me to do. That’s a successful life.
Daron: That’s it. What are you saying to me, God? What do you want me to do about it? That’s what it comes down to. I love it, Ken. I keep coming back to that yes, the blank check moment with God. I can’t go back to the exact moment, but I remember in the past 20 years or so, having a conversation with God where I say, God, listen, the answer is just yes. I’m just going to be default yes.
Ken: Default yes.
Daron: Please, Lord, nowhere colder than Indiana. I always bring in that caveat. Michigan, Wisconsin, maybe for a trip, but not all the time. I want the audience to hear the journey you’ve taken. And I love that you don’t have these major, I knew it from the beginning, there was this burning bush. From the start, because you’re in college, as a 20 something or maybe 19 year old, you just gave God a blank check. It’s just yes. And then that makes everything else so much easier. Youth pastor, lead pastor, worship pastor, doesn’t matter. Hawaii, California, doesn’t matter. Just yes.
Ken: Let me connect a couple of dots. I said yes to Indiana for a year, and my wife’s from Southern California, so she really said it for you. Then the opportunity opened up again. I started March 1st, 2020. The world shuts down March 15th ish. So I had two Sundays. I was helping out at Mercy Road Carmel. The one in Fortville hadn’t started yet. By July, I’ve been here months, and we were looking for who was going to plant with you. We interviewed some people, and I started going, maybe it’s me, maybe I’m not supposed to go back to California, maybe I’m supposed to stay here. We go visit California and we come back, the airplane’s landing, I’m looking out the window, we just had our first trip back to California, we’re landing in Indianapolis, and I’m wrestling with God. What am I supposed to do? And I hear these two words. Not an audible voice, but I literally said in my head, God, what do you think about all this? And I hear, welcome home, as the plane hits. Welcome home. Those are not words I would have thought of. That’s sometimes when you’re hearing God’s voice. I would have thought God would dialogue the way I would, but it was just, welcome home, which is not the way I would have had that conversation flow. So I was like, okay, welcome home. I meet with Josh and I say, I think I’m supposed to plant Mercy Road Northeast. I say yes to it. We plant, and the rest is history. As I think about my journey and those surrendered yeses and God guiding, I so resonate with Moses when he was leading the Israelites. There’s 40 years they’re wandering the desert, and in Numbers it talks about how they build a tabernacle, which is where God’s presence dwells, and then they’re supposed to camp around it. It explains in crazy detail how they’re all supposed to camp, all 12 tribes. It’s a bunch of work to set up. This is mobile church, but crazy. There are particulars on what materials to use, and only Levites can set it up. So they set this up, and it says they might stay there for a year, because there was this cloud, or this fire, that symbolized God’s presence. If God stayed there, they had to stay there. Then it would lift up one day, without them asking, and start moving, and they’re like, we got to pack up. They’d pack up everything, all their tents and belongings, and the tabernacle. Then when it stopped somewhere else, they’d set up camp around it. That’s become a metaphor for me. What was that about? It was, just give God your yes. For us that represents the Holy Spirit. How is the Holy Spirit leading? If it was three days, they’d stay three days. Three months, they’d stay three months. Now, I don’t think people need to move every year, but what was the point? God was teaching them, will you live in my presence, and when I move, will you move, and when I say stay, will you stay? That’s become for me, recognizing, because one thing with people who have moved a lot, when people say, where’s home, I’m like, well, kind of Canada, San Jose, Pepperdine, Hawaii, Huntington Beach, Indianapolis, where’s home? It’s hard for me to answer, to be honest. But for me, it’s become, God’s presence is home. Jesus is home. I don’t care if I’m in California or Hawaii or Indiana or wherever God sends, he is my home, his presence. So I’m home anywhere. I’m just going to give him my yes. And if I stay here for the rest of my life, so be it.
Daron: That’s so good. That’s the closer right there.