The Emptiness of Mere Success

I saw this link to a Tom Brady interview on Challies today. I’m not as much of a sports fan as I used to be, but I was moved by this three-time Super Bowl winner’s concluding remarks. Even with all his success and money he seems not completely satisfied and says, “Why do I have three Super Bowl rings, and still think there’s something greater out there for me?” Acknowledging that people would object that he has reached his dream, he admits thinking, “There’s gotta be more than this.” The interviewer then asks, “What’s the answer?” To which Mr. Brady replies, “I wish I knew. I wish I knew.”

I think I was so affected because that was the way I felt thirty years ago. I wasn’t a star at anything, especially sports…just too slow I guess. But I landed a job at an international corporation’s newest expansion in upstate South Carolina and soon started making more money than my dad, with the prospect of more promotions and more money. Not bad for a guy who didn’t go to college. I thought myself successful, but I soon realized something was missing. Just what that something was eluded me. Why did I feel so empty inside?

I considered trying different things, possibly ruining my life in the process. But God, who is rich in mercy, intervened and drew me to His Son Jesus Christ. Though I had been raised in church, I just didn’t get it. That is, until God supernaturally opened the eyes of my understanding to see the truth of the Gospel. No one talked me into anything, pressured me to walk an aisle or pray “the sinner’s prayer.” The Lord just caused me to see the vanity of earthly things and worked in me a longing for something more, something that would make me feel happy and complete. That “something” turned out to be Someone. For the first time in my life Jesus Christ seemed really real to me. It seemed as though I had just come to life that summer night. Now, nearly thirty years later, I appreciate the Gospel even more than I did then. To God be ALL the glory!

How I wish Tom Brady would hear and believe the Gospel! I feel compelled to pray for him. Satan will be prepared with his offer of substitutes, but only Jesus can satisfy the soul. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, another person who turned to Christ after seeing the vanity of mere success, stated my feeling as succinctly as anyone I’ve ever read when he defined a Christian as “one who, since believing in Christ, feels himself to be the happiest man in the world and longs for everybody else to be equally happy!” (Iain H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, p. 56).

The Emptiness of Mere Success