Sunday, April 24, 2016

Be detached from success or failure

If God wills that you should be successful, you will enjoy success. If He wills that you should fail, you will fail. His will likewise transcends all actions that may ensure or prevent success, or may assure or avert failure. His will is not contingent on your intention, nor is it bound by your action. Nor is the desired outcome contingent on your innocence or your guilt.

Yet if success is based upon some expectation, and you anticipate this success, and engage in no action, then you have abandoned your duty. You engage in action, good or evil; His will may be to require good or evil. Thus, if you act appropriately and perform your duty, the action in which you engage may take the form of success or failure—success because you have merited it, or failure when your endeavor is innocent but misguided.

Understanding this, it is possible to glimpse some understanding of the command to be detached from success or failure, but likewise always to engage in action, sacrificing the outcome always to His will.
Always He wills it but, as the people of Nineveh understood, our actions aren’t without consequence, and He is aware of our intentions, our actions, our guilt, and our innocence.