Negative Success

Negative success is the term I use for being in the condition of losing and gaining.  As a child, I saw my parents buy cars and then lose them.  We had a house and then we lost it.  We had power and then we lost it.  Every time we took one step forward, we took two steps back.  It became our history and our pattern.  I knew if we got something, not to hold on to it because it would be a matter of time before we would lose it again.  Well, that pattern was hooked up to their behavior.  They had a history of signing up for items on a payment plan and then not paying on the payment plan.  Therefore, the furniture was taken back, the china cabinet was taken back and every car they owned was repossessed.  The Bible states that the wicked borrow and do not pay it back.  I remember when they did not pay the power bill and we had no electricity for a year.  I learned something from that.  Going from flop to failure and from failure to flop is not the pattern I want to establish in my life.  One associate of mine has lost more jobs than I have fingers to count them.  We both are at a point in our lives where we should have something but she is starting all over again.  Once again, the blood covers her sin, but she has to change her behavior.  Negative success looks bad over time.  When I was 21, none of us had anything.  We were in college and money was hard to come by.  When I got thirty, we were at least established in our fields with roots or we were in graduate school.  In my thirties, we worked in our careers, started families, bought homes and managed the debt of the previous decade.  Now that I am forty, I am not looking for someone still in college eating Ramen noodles.  Someone who shows up at that age with nothing tells me that there had to be some kind of negative success.  Somehow, that person blew it and is blossoming a bit late.  It looks bad to be forty and living in your parents basement.  It looks bad when you are forty and your kids are taking care of you.  It looks bad when you are trying to date someone established and they have to pick you up, pay for the dinner, get the tip, buy the coffee, pay the parking meter and then drop you off before the lights go out at the mission.  Righteousness will give you a victory to victory history.  It leaves you impressive.  it makes you glow like new money.  It makes you able to pick me up in your second car, drive me to a great restaurant, pay for dinner, get the tip, buy the dinner coffee and sit by the lake until the fireflies turn off.  That is the kind of success I like.