day 1098: Trappings of Success

"What is your charge against this man?"

When we are successful we can get caught in taking ourselves too seriously.  When this happens we can find ourselves acting out as we would be expected in someone in a position such as ours.  We can start to dress like we think we should.  We can start to hang with people that others want us to hang and who we think help support our position of success.  We can start to go to meetings, conferences, places that benefit our persona/brand more than give us growth or really mean anything to us.  We can start to take on the language of those like us and what we are expected.  If we are not careful, we can trapped by success and before long we are making decisions and moves that are those that are expected, instead of what we think are right or should be happening.  This doesn't just happen with individuals.  Companies can also fall into the trappings of success and find themselves not innovating or resisting change and compromise because of their position of success.  Watch out, the trappings of success are subtle but very real and very, very dangerous.  Once trapped, it is very hard to escape.

We are nearing Easter weekend and all around the world churches are teaching the Easter account and the lessons that we can take from the events that occurred in the days leading up to Jesus' crucifixion.  Our church in San Francisco, Cornerstone is doing the same.  The last two weeks we have we looked at the decision of Pilate and it was clear that he was a man who was trapped in his own success and when his final decision was to be made, He was so much a caricature of his position that for him to have gone against the request of the people would have been out of character and unseemly for one in his position.  We can learn something about ourselves in the actions of Pilate.  Have we ever been in the position where we wanted to stop and help someone else or go against the decision of the group but we haven't because we are trapped into our own success and to to do something unexpected would put continued success at risk? Sure we have.  Now the question needs to be - will we stay trapped or will we rescue ourselves from this going further?  Consider today and as we get closer to Easter what trappings need to be shed?

Reference: John 18:29 (New Living Translation)