THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT CAN BE OUR MODEL FOR SUCCESS

When you find strong opposition to your going off and achieving something on your own, take advice from the Hebrews, who escaped Egyptian slavery, crossed the Jordan, and eventually settled as a free people.

The story is told in the Old Testament, beginning at Exodus 8.

Lessons from the Exodus:

Your success may not endear you to others. The march to Canaan took 40 years, during which the tribes were tested and found wanting. Their migration ended in two years, but the masses balked on the border of Canaan, fearing to exercise enough faith to cross over. So God put them in a holding pattern of wandering until the balkers died. Their success was put on hold for 38 years. Only Moses believed the optimistic minority report of spies Joshua and Caleb. Like many today, they felt God might be trusted to help them in poverty, but never in times of plenty. They lived with little, to avoid trusting God for more. Be prepared for this - and prepared to move on to find greater success elsewhere.

You tend to become what you see yourself being. It is easy to move forward into an empty desert or follow the person ahead of you across a dry sea floor, with the war chariots of Pharaoh at your heels. Whether it's fear or faith that moves you is hard to say, when safety lies ahead and danger runs behind you. It is another thing to cross an enemy border with only God's promise of success urging you on. When the Hebrews chose to fear the unknown giants of the promised land, they determined their future for centuries. Today, many people halt on the brink of success and riches, fearing others they know only by hearsay, reported to be taller, better, more talented and deserving than they.

It is not reality that stops your success, so much as your giant fears. Though a new generation crossed the Jordan, it would be centuries more before God's people came into effective possession of the land that was theirs already, by contract. Once David toppled Goliath, his people found no problem killing off any others lurking in the land. The example of the first successful person is always soon acted on by others who hesitate until then. Success breeds success by giving example and permission.

No one can be forced to be successful. Despite miracles, the Israelites did not see themselves successful, so they never were. What they felt inside overrode what they saw God doing outside. Although they witnessed the greatest miracles of any in the Bible (the Passover, the plagues, and the parting of the Red Sea) and were led daily by the Shekinah,the visible presence of God, they were still unable to do the right thing. They glamorized the memories of the "good old days" in Egypt. A taste for the past killed their foretaste of a better future. The successful are always people of the future.

You cannot make someone be a success, or do anything they do not believe in. The generation enjoying the most direct contact with God put the least trust in His promises. They survived, but did not find success. It would remain for descendants with no guiding pillar of cloud by day and fire by night to make their way to success across the Jordan. Most people do not believe in success. If they believed, they would try. Not even God's encouragement persuades those who do not have a personal vision of future success.

Richard Gaylord Briley is a protégé of both Arthur S. DeMoss, the billionaire philanthropist, and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, with whom he worked for 18 years. While learning the content of this book, Dr. Briley raised more than billion for religious and charitable causes, started two medical research foundations, and found true success to be spiritually based.

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