Grounded: Strengthening Your Soul While Building Success
Success is a wonderful thing that God desires for His people, but it comes with hidden dangers. As we pursue the dreams and visions God has placed in our hearts, we must learn to prepare not just for prosperity, but for the challenges that come with it.
What Does It Mean to Be Grounded?
In Isaiah 54, God gives Israel a powerful word picture about a widowed woman living in a small tent. Despite her circumstances, God tells her to prepare for expansion: “enlarge the place of your tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of your habitation. Spare not, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.”
The key phrase here is “lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.” While lengthening represents expansion and growth, strengthening represents being grounded. You can’t build something bigger on the outside than who you are on the inside without eventually collapsing under the pressure.
Why Success Can Be Dangerous
Jesus warned us about the deceitfulness of success in Matthew 16:26: “What do you benefit if you gain the whole world, but you lose your own soul?” Success isn’t inherently bad, but it can deceive us in subtle ways.
The size of your life must match the strength of your soul. True abundance isn’t sustained by what you gain, but by what you keep. You can gain everything and still lose what matters most – your relationship with God, your family, and your true self.
Three Areas Where Success Tries to Deceive Us
1. Priorities: When Success Hijacks Your Attention
Success has a way of gradually stealing our focus from what truly matters. It doesn’t happen all at once – it creeps in an hour at a time, then a day, then over weekends. Before you know it, work ends at 6 instead of 5, then 8, then takes over entire weekends.
Jesus taught us the solution in Matthew 6:33: “Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously and he will give you everything you need.” When we put God’s kingdom first – meaning the things God values – everything else falls into proper place.
Warning Signs Your Priorities Are Off Track:
– God moves from being central to being supplemental in your life – Faith-related activities become optional – Your best time and energy go toward achievements rather than relationships – Success starts setting your agenda instead of God’s will
2. Connection: When Success Hijacks Your Relationships
In John 15:4-5, Jesus said, “Remain in me, and I’ll remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine.” You can be productive on your own, but if you want to be truly fruitful, you need God.
Success has a way of disconnecting us from what matters most. We become more connected to devices, schedules, and systems than to God, family, and meaningful relationships. We move from belonging to busy, from intimacy to isolation.
How to Know If You’re Losing Connection:
– You become easily frustrated and angry – Your conversations become more negative than positive – You can’t leave work at work – You think more about getting home to your computer than to your family
3. Purpose: When Success Hijacks Your True Direction
The most subtle deception of success is when you start doing good things for the wrong reasons. Success tries to convince you it’s all about having more, when God’s plan is about you becoming more so you can give more.
Jesus illustrated this in Luke 12 with the story of the rich man who kept building bigger barns to store his wealth. God called him a fool because he focused on accumulating rather than impacting others.
Four Ways Purpose Gets Distorted
Stewardship vs. Ownership
Remember that everything belongs to God – you’re just a steward. When you think you own everything, you start using it only for yourself.
Serving vs. Securing
Instead of serving people, you start using people to secure what you want. You focus more on receiving than giving.
Accumulation vs. Impact
What God gives you is meant to be multiplied, not just maintained. Abundance is something to deploy, not just deposit.
Through You vs. For You
Success should flow through you to bless others, not stop with you. Avoid the “mine, mine, mine” mentality that values things over people.
Life Application
This week, take an honest inventory of your life. Are you lengthening your cords (expanding) without strengthening your stakes (staying grounded)? Success without spiritual grounding leads to collapse.
Choose one area where success might be hijacking your priorities, connections, or purpose. Make a specific plan to realign that area with God’s values. Remember, you’re not here to be an owner but a steward of everything God has given you.
Questions for Reflection:
– What is currently competing with God for the center of my attention? – Am I more connected to my devices and work than to the people I love most? – What am I building that’s bigger on the outside than who I am on the inside? – How can I use my current success to serve others rather than just secure my own future?
The goal isn’t to avoid success, but to stay grounded while God expands your life. Let your soul prosper at the same rate as your external success, and you’ll experience the abundant life Jesus promised.