Keith Battle - The Anatomy of Success

I want to talk to you today about what I consider the anatomy of success. I believe success has a framework, it has a construct, and there are six components to it that I want to give you today. Thanks, guys, I appreciate y’all. The anatomy of success, and the first word I want to talk about is the word opportunity. Everybody say opportunity. I think opportunities are very important to our success. Opportunity is sort of like the linchpin in this conversation; it is the word around which everything else pivots, and it is so vitally important. I believe opportunities can change the trajectory of our lives. The difference between us experiencing certain levels of success and exposure in life is usually because of a transition, a bridge called opportunity. It’s just a door opening—God opened a door—and sometimes you have to knock on it too.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 9, the scripture says in verse 11, «I have seen something else under the sun.» Solomon writes, «The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise, or wealth to the brilliant, or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.» I want you to read those last two lines with me: «but time and chance happen to them all.» On three: one, two, three—"but time and chance happen to them all.» Whether it’s swift or strong, whether it’s weak, whether it’s black or white, male or female, time and chance happens to us all. One thing I take from that is that everybody gets a chance. I don’t care how deprived you are in life. When I say I don’t care, I mean it doesn’t matter at the end of the day how much you’ve been through, how much you’ve lost, who betrayed you, or who let you down; there is nothing you can say that will change this fact: that God has given every one of us a chance. Everybody has been given a chance in spite of the world in which we live, where there is systemic injustice, racial inequality, and gender inequality. Your first husband may not have treated you well; your father may have abandoned you, and your mother may not like you. But I’m going to tell you something: you cannot say, honestly, that God has not given you chance after chance after chance. You’d be lying. You owe Him praise. If your only praise is, «Lord, I thank you for every chance you’ve given me,» then that’s enough. We’re here right now because He gave us a chance.

They used to say when I was young (and I’m about to date myself), when you wanted to go with somebody at my age, you had to ask for a chance. Can I? Understand, you have to ask God for a chance. Morning by morning, new mercies we see—the chances of God, the opportunities of God are innumerable. Because chance and opportunity play such a vital role in our success and the quality of life we have, I think it is very important that we know how to manage chances and opportunities when they’re at the doorstep of our lives. You may not be able to create a chance or even orchestrate an opportunity, but you need to know how to maximize one if it arrives at your doorstep.

The second word I want you to write down is the word desire. The way you know when an opportunity may be an opportunity from God for you is when that opportunity intersects with your own desire. In life, there will be all kinds of opportunities; you’ll be invited to be a part of this, invited to be involved in that, and invited to engage in the other. People will invite you and say, «Hey, do you want to be a part of this new network marketing venture?» Nah, nah. Let me finish. Someone might come to your door and say, «I have a van to clean your walk.» No, good. Shut the door. Now, there’s an opportunity to ride bikes across America, and they’ll even give you money. «No, I can’t do that; my butt will be sore riding a bike that long.» There’s an opportunity to climb the Swiss Alps; I’m scared of heights, so I can’t do that. Now, there are going to be opportunities all around us; that’s why desire is so important.

Listen to Psalm 37:4. Psalm 37:4 says, «Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you…» This is interesting. When the Bible says God will give you the desires of your heart, you delight yourself in the Lord, the desires of your heart. There are two ways to interpret that: one is that if you delight yourself in the Lord, He will put the desire in your heart; or some believe that if I delight myself in the Lord, He will fulfill the desires in my own heart—the desires that are already there. I don’t know which way you will interpret the verse, but one thing is true: the promise is clear; whatever desire you have is coming from God. When desire hits you, it came from God. You might say it came from God, whether He gave it to you to desire itself or fulfilled the desire that you had; it came from God. Now, I believe both are true. I believe that God delivers and that He designs us with desires. The reason why I believe God designs us with unique desires is that we don’t like the…