Success

When people reach the pinnacle of their ambitions, what happens next?

For some, it becomes a springboard for more lofty goals, such as humanitarian endeavors.  For example, Bill Gates and wife Melinda created the largest private foundation in the world – the Gates Foundation that primary aims to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.  Warren Buffett has become a major contributor to the Gates Foundation. Low profile Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of the late Steve Jobs,has been pursuing well-intentioned programs in education and social entrepreneurship, through College Track, Udacity and the Emerson Collective.

Then there are others who simply cannot handle success, drowning in the excesses of fame and possessions.  For instance, the Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who disdained Hollywood glamour, was found dead from an overdose of heroine on February 2. Glee star Corey Monteith died after mixing heroin with alcohol.  Teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber was arrested for driving under the influence with findings of traces of marijuana and prescription drugs in his blood. Those are the more high profile ones. There are many others not in the field of entertainment, successful as well, who succumb to addiction not just to drugs, but also to materialism and vanity, on the belief that these will fill their lives with happiness.

God wants each individual to be achievers, to attain their full potential, as He had planned. Once, we lose sight of His Guiding Light, and instead believe that it is the self alone that controls one’s destiny; then whatever is achieved becomes hollow and empty.  The Tower of Babel was built not to honor God, but by Babylonians who thought of themselves as all powerful. “Then they said, “Come let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous.” (Genesis 11:4). But God had another plan: He wanted the people dispersed throughout the earth.

In today’s world, when people lose their way in life, they would go into rehab, to cure them of their addictions.  It sounds more glamorous; but we know that psychological and emotional treatments are superficial, as it is the soul that actually needs healing.

If say, Justin Bieber would decide to go into rehab; most will nod their heads in confirmation. But then how many celebrities and non-celebrities have actually been totally freed from the demons in their lives?  

Bieber, I suggest, you go on a spiritual retreat. I am certain you can be lifted out of the deep vacuum that Legion may now inhabit.  For if you turned to Jesus, the Savior will say: “Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:14)