success on Attacks

In life, whenever someone achieves success, criticism usually follows—regardless of their skill or the effort they’ve invested. An old story illustrates this truth. A woman crafted artificial fruit so...

Success is a shining city, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We dream of it as children, we strive for it through our adult lives, and we suffer melancholy in old age if we have not reached it....

In Part 1 of this series ( Climbing the Pastor's Ladder: Holy Ambition and Escaping the Comparison Trap ), we looked at the ladder of pastoral advancement and the trap of comparing ourselves t...

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. –George Bernard Shaw Problems w...

It is a sprinting, squirting, shoving age.

Ambition has no rest.

If a man is forever concerned first and foremost with his own interests then he is bound to collide with others. If for any man life is a competition…then he will always think of other human beings as...

Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon.

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

Studying your own failures as well can make them seem less earth-shattering. One researcher suggested in a 2010 article in Nature that people maintain a “CV of failures,” a written list of the things ...

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

Father, we confess to boasting in success and security. We have denied you rather that desire you. We have cowered when we needed to be courageous. Jesus, we long to be people who follow you, no matte...

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation...

In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...

Men (and woman) are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success.

Many Christians estimate difficulties in the light of their own resources, and thus attempt little and often fail in the little they attempt. All God's giants have been weak men who did great thin...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the sobering truth of what happens to many leaders when they climb the “ladder of success”: The ground at the foot of the ladde...

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.

The pressure to succeed is greater than it has ever been—People feel that they must pursue that goal been…people feel that they must pursue that goal even if it means crawling over the bodies of cowor...

Why did Moses strike the rock? He was a man of faith, whose life had been characterized by trust in God (see, for example, the description of Moses in (Heb 11:24-29). So why did he fall into unbelief ...

The highest offices of the state and church resemble a pyramid whose top is accessible to only two sorts of animals-eagles and reptiles.

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control o...

Since failure is our unforgivable sin, we are willing to ignore all forms of deviance in people if they just achieve the success symbols which we worship.

The Benedictine nun Joan Chittister recounts a story she once heard by a communications professor, which she said fundamentally changed the way she thought about success and failure: A young boy was...

We want everyone around us to believe we have it all together—and we don’t. We fear everyone else is living the lives they post and we are the only imposters. And so, the race is on. The race to perfe...

If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.

The fruit of the Spirit is not push, drive, climb, grasp and trample. Life is more than a climb to the top of the heap.

Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.

"How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?"