Are You Chasing the Wind? The Meaningless Chase for Success
When I think about my biggest fear, I think about the idea of failing. Somehow common fears like the fear of never getting married, rejection, or change never trumped my fear of not being successful. I’m sure that many of us can relate. The idea of not making it in life is a terrifying thought. To think that we work so hard and put so much time and effort into building or creating a “successful” life only to never make it is quite devastating. The question is, why do we find that so horrible?
According to the world’s definition, success is a culmination of accomplishments, the attainment of wealth, prosperity, popularity, or status. It’s a definition that is clothed in self-glory and personal pleasure. We crave that feeling of glory and success, and we’ll spend majority of our time chasing that perfect picture that the world paints. We spend all of our time creating things and working in order to achieve this success, but once success is reached what does it mean? What is its purpose?
In the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon gives an account of how he lived his life. Most of his life was spent chasing success and other materialistic things that didn’t matter. He conveyed how unknowingly empty he was, “chasing the wind.” Chasing the wind is the equivalent to chasing trivial pursuits. King Solomon built a successful empire. He had spent his life seeking meaning in building homes, wealth, working hard, knowledge, and 700 wives and 300 concubines. He was one of the most successful kings, and he had found that his success was purposeless because he was chasing the wind. A lot of us can relate to King Solomon because we are chasing the same thing.
The wind can’t be caught or collected, it’s intangible. And although many of our possessions and accomplishments take a tangible form in our life, they can’t give us meaning because they weren’t purposed to. True success and fulfillment comes from chasing God, not success. As women that were made in God’s image, He created us to long for the things that He wants, which is fulfillment and wholeness in our life. Until we are ruling with Him, we will always see the glass half full because of our imperfection. Our true thirst for fulfillment comes from craving what’s eternal, not temporal. Because so many of us are chasing temporal things, we will never be satisfied by the world’s definition of success.
As purpose-driven women, we weren’t meant to be defined by the world’s version of success. We were called to higher measures. Envy, greed, comparison, and a scarcity mindset, leads us to strive for conventional success, but what if we redefined the definition?
Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform to the world but be renewed by the transformation of our minds. This is where we will find success. Success is in chasing after God and His will for our lives. He gives abundantly and accomplishes more than we ever could on our own. In Him we find true success, and we are immeasurably more.
