More Nouwen and Thoughts on Success

Something in me (my "flesh," I suppose) pushes me to succeed. But the success to which I am so pushed is all about bigger, more and "better." I haven't been very good at that either in my life or my vocation. By worldly standards of success I don't rate very highly.

Then, from Nouwen's Reaching Out via A Guide to Prayer Readings for Reflection, I read this:

But it is important that in this world there remain a few voices crying out that if there is anything to boast of, we should boast of our weakness. Our fulfillment is in offering emptiness, our usefulness in becoming useless, our power in becoming powerless.

A word for me in my striving. And one for conservative Anglicans who aren't feeling very effective or influential but who also feel called to remain in the Anglican Church of Canada.

Nouwen is, of course, referring to this:

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12.9-10)

If there is any success, better that it come as a result of that kind of power and strength than anything I can work up.