Many times we wish for good things, but they never happen and we wonder why. Some of those times, it is possible that it is through our own actions that the success we envision slips away. Of course you can wait around and hope to wake up one day to be accidentally successful due to external circumstances (e.g. you found out that Bill Gates named you in his will) — but that is largely unrealistic. This week, I quote Brett Johnson. Brett Johnson was a partner at Computer Sciences Corporation and KPMG Peat Marwick, and was a senior manager at Price Waterhouse. He has served as a advisor to a number of Fortune 1000 companies and has twenty years of experience helping major corporations develop creative business strategies.
We need to give ourselves — and God — the margin needed to make things happen. Some years ago I met a Jewish believer who had worked a steady job as a schoolteacher in New York**. As a new believer he realized that if he stayed in his job and failed to risk, there would be little opprtunity for God to bless him. So he took a job for less pay, worked for a tough boss, and became a millionaire. I am not a “name it and claim it” proponent, but his advice to me as stuck: Put yourself in a position where God can bless you.
I know the term “tough boss” might have a negative connotation to some, but for young professionals like myself, you stand to learn a lot from a boss that is tough on you. However, there is a line between being tough on you because you are an asset to be grown, and tough on you because you are a resource to be consumed (you want the former, not the latter — the latter is a slow painful death for career builders). Think of going to the gym, you exert yourself by pushing yourself to build up strength & stamina. If you don’t push yourself, then you’re just wasting your time in the gym. Walking through the gym doors alone does not equal better health.
A rabbi told a story that went like this: A religious man stood in the synagogue and asked God to help him win the lottery. That week he won nothing. The next week he was back in the synagogue asking a bit more fervently. Silence from God and no big win. By the third week he was prostrate before the Ark, begging God to help him win the lottery. Just then, a voice came from the Ark. “Look, would you mind meeting me half-way. At least buy a ticket!”
We’ve all been like that man. We want the joy when God does great things in and through us, but we are so busy getting ready in the locker room that we never get in the game. To win, you have to be in the game.
Convergence, by Brett Johson. Thanks to my buddy Phil Lee for the book 
** Nothing against being a schoolteacher — I think it’s a respectable profession that sometimes doesn’t deserve enough credit, my mother is a schoolteacher and I have aunts who are also schoolteachers.
