If a farmer in a communal area goes too far ahead of his neighbours there will be jealousy and a hope that he will somehow fail. If someone gets promotion and goes up the ladder I would really like to see him or her pulled down. We find it hard to rejoice in another persons success unless we are somehow included and benefit from it.
Yet when we think about it, how can a country move ahead if some individuals using their abilities in an honest way dont move ahead? Is that not what leadership is all about, going ahead and leading others along the way?
100 years ago there were few cars, or automobiles as they called them, in America. You had to be unusually rich to own one. Along comes Henry Ford and designs a peoples car for a fraction of the price and floods the market with his new model. I do not know whether he was liked for what he did but he was certainly respected. Here was someone who used his head to literally get the country moving.
This desire to see someone fail is pernicious and destructive. It discourages people from trying to do something new and adventurous. What prevents us rejoicing in the success of another person who has used his abilities to achieve something?
There is another side to this in that the one failure we can celebrate is our own. I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me it is when I am weak that I am strong (2 Cor 12: 9-10). Since we cannot control what others think about us it is best just to leave it and not worry. That is in part what the words of Jesus, blessed are the poor in spirit mean.
There is the story of the old Indian farmer who was accused of fornication with a girl in the village. He simply lifted his head and said, is that so? Then he lowered his head and continued working. Six months later the villagers returned to apologise as the real culprit had been discovered. Again he was on his plot and again he just lifted his head and said, is that so? And he returned to his work.
There are things we cannot control and for Paul they are occasions to rejoice, to boast. I suspect it is not so easy for us to be calm and at peace when calamity comes our way. Lord, help me, Im sinking, we cry with Peter (Matt 15:30). But in the midst of failure it is just as well to remember Jesus response, man of little faith, why did you doubt?
I love the story of Zorba the Greek who rigged up a cable system on poles to transport timber from the mountain to the sea shore. The first log came down successfully but the second tore through the whole system and left it in ruins. What did Zorba do? Lament and blame everyone? No, he started to dance on the beach and invited all his workers to join him.
Post published in: News