Our Search for Success

Everyone, including the Christian, wants to be successful. The search for success is almost universal. But this is not a book that will outline three easy steps to success. This is not a book that will tell you how to become a millionaire. This is not a guide to fame and wide public esteem. It does not even guarantee you the surface kind of happiness most of us would like to have, or offer you insurance against failure, hurt, and despondency.

But this is still a book about success, a book addressed to the young and the young at heart who are looking toward an adventurous future. Together we shall seek to discover the ingredients that go into the making of genuine Christian success as contrasted with the widely held view that the achieving of high social status and the compiling of material possessions and worldly power comprise success.

This book takes the position that Christian success offers much wider dimensions and greater depth than what is ordinarily called success. One can successfully come to grips with life through Christ even in the midst of apparent failure with no prospect of success in this popular sense. The daily application of Christianity will guide us in finding greater success, a more basic security, and a deeper happiness. Circumstances need not control us!

Suggestions set forth here may sometimes help a person [[@Page:viii]]know a greater degree of success in the world, but the author is concerned mainly with achieving that real Christian success that overrides any kind of worldly accomplishment.

If Christians, through individual or group study of this book, receive any new insights into how they may more effectively work for more successful Christian living and better relationships with other people, I shall feel more than repaid for the time and effort that has gone into the writing of this book.

 —Rolla O. Swisher