Live Fire with Chuck Holton

Art Williams appeared this week as a guest on the 700 club. Back in the early ’90’s I got my start in the financial services business working for Primerica, the company Art founded. The best thing about Primerica was that it put a great amount of energy into motivating us toward success.

Art’s success philosophy was simple: Work hard. Live right. Find something to believe in.

Since then, I’ve tried to nail down what being successful means in my own life. Obviously, having a bunch of money doesn’t make one a success, but neither does poverty. So what is success, anyway?

1 Timothy 6:6 says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”
That word, “gain,” is about as close as the New Testament comes to the word “success.” Look up the definition of “gain,” and you get words like profit, advance, increase. You could paraphrase that verse like this: Success is: Godliness with contentment. the size of your bank account is irrelevent to the equation.

Success isn’t something you have: a big house, a loving family, a healthy body. Success is more a state of being – those other things are merely it’s trappings.

Bill Gothard of the Advanced Training Institute International puts it this way:

True success is achieving the purposes for which God created us. God’s specific purposes are best carried out when the following basic life purposes are developed:

1. Being a wise person
2. Being a skilled provider
3. Being a powerful proclaimer of truth
4. Being a loving marriage partner
5. Being a discerning parent

That’s not quite as simple as Art Williams or 1 Timothy, but it certainly speaks to how I want my life to look.

NHL hockey player Mike Rupp said recently that God’s plan is “inconvenient for us – it’s hard to grasp sometimes.”

True, but nobody said success was easy.

I recently noticed that somehow Amazon.com got hold of an article that I published years ago, and is now selling it for five bucks a download. I’m not sure how they think they can do that legally, since I sold only the first north american serial rights to Countryside and Small Stock Journal, but just to thumb my nose at them, here is the complete text of the article, for free. Enjoy.

Bathing a Cat

There are several “barn cats” that live on our farm. We don’t see them much, as they are quite wild. Once in awhile you might walk into the woodshed and surprise one or two of them, and they will instantly turn into little furry pinballs flying around the shed trying to get out. Sometimes one will sneer at you from across the yard before disappearing under the house. That’s about all we see of them. That’s about all we want to see of them.

On Kiernan’s fourth birthday in October, we were vacationing in Lancaster County, PA and saw a sign by someone’s house that said “free kittens.” Figuring that a cuddly kitten would make a good birthday present for a four year old, and “free” was definitely in our price range, we stopped at the house. I imagined the torture that one cat might endure at the hands of our kids, each wanting to hold it….so we got two. We let the kids name their kittens themselves. We asked Kiernan what her kitty’s name would be, and she decided on Sally. Then we asked Mason what he would name his cat, and he confidently replied, “Hot Dog”. So, with Sally and Hot Dog in a box in the back of the suburban, we headed home.
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When I went to vote here in WV yesterday, the first screen on the electronic voting machine had three buttons that would allow you to vote a straight party ticket if you so desired.

Next to each of the three “straight ticket” choices was a small symbol, ostensibly representing the party.

For instance, next to the “mountain party” button, there was a little icon of a mountain.

Here’s the funny part: Next to the Republican button was an eagle.

Next to the Democrat button was – I am not making this up…

…a Chicken.

My two sons were with me. We were, at the time, the only voters in the gymnasium. I said, “Well, which should I vote for?”

My oldest son said, “Vote for the eagle, Dad. They can beat up chickens.”

I laughed all the way home.

But still, what the heck was that all about?

Updated to add: I found some evidence that this isn’t an isolated phenomenon, and after a little study, found that the Chicken was the original symbol of the Democratic party in 1840.
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