The Success Struggle

My blog has been up three days and I'm struggling. What's the real motivation behind this? My friends have great blogs and great insighs and I like to share mine as well. On one end, that's the purpose. On the other, is my own self-centered, "look at me, I'm special" thinking. I'm thinking, look at what God is doing in my life. How 'bout them apples? So I struggle with self-promotion and exalting myself. I think of stories where we hear about people marrying other people so they can show off thier spouses. Am I showing off my relationship with God (or lack thereof sometimes) and treating it like a trophy? Is that it wrong? I know the consequences so I confessed to God about this. I haven't really heard anything so maybe I'll get my answer later on.

Success is the sweetest revenge I've heard and that was my motivation for most of my life. I had to be somebody. All the heartache could not be for nothing. The people that hurt me would have to look at me one day and be very sorry. Over the summer and even into September, I could not handle not having a full-time job. All my titles were gone. I have a Master's degree, multiples years in the publishing business and it appeared like I had nothing to show for it. I didn't know if I would still be involved with anything at ATS either. So one day, I hit rock bottom. Nothing motivating me. I was just exisiting. I finally moved on from that but amazingly enough, my desire for fame and affirmation is still there. Nouwen notes in the Genesee Diary how much "ego climbing" (p.25) and "self glory" (p.29) was going on. He confessed that much of his "sadness is often the result of our attachment to the world" (p.31-32). Crystal Lewis, in the song, "Learn to Fly" notes that "I can raise my voice in protest or surrender and let go." It's tough living a new life.
Nouwen notes how all new insights and everything he learned was going to be used for "future lectures or books." All of my insights would be used so that my ministry or career could explode. It's like I slapped a Christianity sticker around my motivation to make it ok. But I should be wanting to bring glory to God. My mentor pointed out that I'm already a sucess since I'm in Christ and He already won the victory. I can particapte; nothing else can be done. I'm a sucess after all. ...