Friday, June 23, 2006
On Success - A Personal Testimony
I had the wind sucked right out of my lungs yesterday...
I have had a client for almost 20 years. We haven't see each other much physcially in the last 15 years or so. Once the working relationship was firmly established it was just too easy by phone, fax or email. I saw him with my own two eyes for the first time in about 3 years yesterday.
We started our businesses at the about the same time and have grown together. He grew at one of those startling paces, making millions and millions. I chose a slower path. At his height my friend could have bought and sold me out of pocket change. I consider myself a wealthy man, but by his standards I live in public housing, drive wrecks, and my European vacations are phlebian.
His business has hit hard times, in fact its completely broke and in receivership. He personally is close to BK, though the work I am currently doing with him is to try and salvage value from some of his remaining assets to avoid that.
When I last saw my friend he was well into the downward financial slide, but there was plenty of reason to hope, unlike now.
Did I tell you we are virtually the same age, my friend and I?
What I saw yesterday was a man physically broken, more reminiscent of my grandfather at 85 than a person of my middle age. My heart sank, I had to work not to cry. My immediate reaction was to offer, right then and right there, to pray for him. I stifled this impulse because I know he would have found it insulting, both because of it reflecting on his current position and health, and because of his feeelings about faith.
This is an old story, perhaps even cliche, but now it is mine and I need to tell it.
My friend devoted himself night and day to his business, and often chided me about lost opportunities I had because I did "silly" things like honored the Sabbath and did church things in evenings during the week. He married an employee and it was obvious she understood where his first love lay. He was, and is, a man who without his successful business has nothing - and now that he actually has nothing, by all appearances it is actually, physically killing him.
My friend was successful beyond most of our imagination, and it is killing him.
I am not sure I have ever been more grateful for My Lord and for the love I share with my wife, who is herself a gift from God, than I am right now.
Please pray for my friend - and for me. I am overwhelmed with the desire to reach out to him and tell him why our paths have been so different - why, as we both reach our 50's, I am attaining the height of my capabilities and blessings and he finds himself on death's door and on the verge of financial ruin. But I don't sense that God has yet opened the door for that - I wish He would, pray for that opening too.
And then - pray for the church. Pray that the church does not get lost in the same dreams of success my friend did. Pray that we all get lost only in the Lord.
Related Tags: success, failure, faith, reliance
I have had a client for almost 20 years. We haven't see each other much physcially in the last 15 years or so. Once the working relationship was firmly established it was just too easy by phone, fax or email. I saw him with my own two eyes for the first time in about 3 years yesterday.
We started our businesses at the about the same time and have grown together. He grew at one of those startling paces, making millions and millions. I chose a slower path. At his height my friend could have bought and sold me out of pocket change. I consider myself a wealthy man, but by his standards I live in public housing, drive wrecks, and my European vacations are phlebian.
His business has hit hard times, in fact its completely broke and in receivership. He personally is close to BK, though the work I am currently doing with him is to try and salvage value from some of his remaining assets to avoid that.
When I last saw my friend he was well into the downward financial slide, but there was plenty of reason to hope, unlike now.
Did I tell you we are virtually the same age, my friend and I?
What I saw yesterday was a man physically broken, more reminiscent of my grandfather at 85 than a person of my middle age. My heart sank, I had to work not to cry. My immediate reaction was to offer, right then and right there, to pray for him. I stifled this impulse because I know he would have found it insulting, both because of it reflecting on his current position and health, and because of his feeelings about faith.
This is an old story, perhaps even cliche, but now it is mine and I need to tell it.
My friend devoted himself night and day to his business, and often chided me about lost opportunities I had because I did "silly" things like honored the Sabbath and did church things in evenings during the week. He married an employee and it was obvious she understood where his first love lay. He was, and is, a man who without his successful business has nothing - and now that he actually has nothing, by all appearances it is actually, physically killing him.
My friend was successful beyond most of our imagination, and it is killing him.
I am not sure I have ever been more grateful for My Lord and for the love I share with my wife, who is herself a gift from God, than I am right now.
Please pray for my friend - and for me. I am overwhelmed with the desire to reach out to him and tell him why our paths have been so different - why, as we both reach our 50's, I am attaining the height of my capabilities and blessings and he finds himself on death's door and on the verge of financial ruin. But I don't sense that God has yet opened the door for that - I wish He would, pray for that opening too.
And then - pray for the church. Pray that the church does not get lost in the same dreams of success my friend did. Pray that we all get lost only in the Lord.
Related Tags: success, failure, faith, reliance
