My favorite definition of success comes from the Bible, in the first chapter of the book of Joshua. Having just replaced Moses as leader of the children of Israel, Joshua has been given the responsibility of taking them on the final leg of their journey into the Promised Land. God speaks to Joshua about his mission, guiding and encouraging him. Here is part of what God tells him:

“Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:7, 8, New King James Version).

When I was very young, I tended to measure success according to how well I was pleasing my parents. Then I started school, and I measured success there according to how happy my teachers were with me. When I graduated and entered the workforce supporting scientific research in the earth sciences, I often felt successful only if my boss was happy.

There is certainly nothing wrong in wanting to work harmoniously with others. Yet, as I grew in my study of Christian Science, I realized there is a higher authority than parents and teachers and bosses. The “Book of the Law,” to which God points Joshua in the passage above, puts it this way: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (II Timothy 2:15, emphasis added).

I came to see that as long as I am living in accordance with God and His law, I am successful. And it is natural for God’s children to follow divine law. We are not working up to perfection in morality and spirituality, but out from perfection, because we are the spiritual reflection of our Father-Mother God, the source of morality and spirituality.

This realization helped free me from being impressed by human opinion, favorable or unfavorable. I still valued the perspectives offered by my superiors and colleagues, but I was less inclined to be held captive by them. For example, at one point I took a management seminar in which we were asked, “Would you rather be kind or fair?” That question is based on the assumption that those two qualities are mutually exclusive. That’s like asking, “Would you rather reflect Love or Principle?” Both Love and Principle are synonyms for God in Christian Science, and God’s children reflect Him faithfully and perfectly and completely. The Christian qualities of kindness and fairness co-exist and cannot be separated.

Striving to live in accordance with the laws of God helps us stay focused on the big picture, the good of the whole.

No matter how much others in the seminar disagreed with me, I could not accept that being fair to employees was unkind, or that kindness could exclude fairness. And this was more than just theory: As a manager, I had hired and fired my share of people, and I could attest that the kindness in treating co-workers fairly, including firing people sometimes, lay in freeing an employee from continuing in a work situation that was not ultimately going to help that employee or the organization grow and progress. It does take strength and courage, as God told Joshua it would, to follow through on a God-directed course of action, but it blesses everyone.

Striving to live in accordance with the laws of God helps us stay focused on the big picture, the good of the whole. Every situation has a “win-win” solution because divine Love’s solutions don’t leave anyone out. Affirming that we are all equally spiritual ideas of divine Mind, divine Love, with equal access to good, helps everyone involved see and embrace action based on a right motive.

During my years in technical management—supporting research in radar development, underwater acoustics, and space exploration—my study of Christian Science also informed my approach to interviews, both as the interviewer and the interviewee. As an interviewer, I often asked the typical question, “What do you feel is your greatest asset?” I’d been asked this question myself and had for years answered it in the usual fashion, emphasizing my technical abilities, organizational skills, or something along those lines.

But, as my career advanced and I became more aware of the importance of the exemplification of the Book of the Law in the workplace, I began to answer the question differently. I ultimately began telling interviewers that my strongest asset was honesty. I meant this not as a personal asset, but as a divine attribute that I express by reflection. This answer often took interviewers aback, because they expected me to emphasize my specialized technical or management skills.

In these interviews, I explained that honesty is much more than telling the truth. It definitely includes that, but it also means that I can be honest with myself, asking myself, for example, if someone else has a better idea than I do on how to approach something, and then acting on that. It means standing up for myself or my team if necessary, too. It includes interacting in good faith with other teams, divisions, and organizations. It means I am responsible, giving credit where it is due and taking the blame when necessary.

Honesty means not being a “yes” person, not simply telling management what it wants to hear, but providing constructive feedback, whether positive or negative—and being respectful and professional even in disagreement. Honesty means trying to see things from another’s perspective. It means being motivated by what seems right for individual and collective good, rather than focusing on political gain.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, gave the best definition of honesty in her book Science and Health: “Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help” (p. 453).

What I was really doing was explaining to those interviewers that, aside from having technical skills, I honestly tried to abide by the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and that this blessed every aspect of my work. This explanation really reached the interviewers—and I am convinced that it was key to my being offered every position for which I gave that answer. This was not an interview “strategy”; it was simply the truth. I wasn’t claiming to be humanly perfect, only that I was sincerely striving to be a good Christian. As Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Sincerity is more successful than genius or talent” (Message to The Mother Church for 1900, p. 9).

Ultimately, I became less interested in advancing my career through research in earth science, and more interested in discovering all I could about God and His law through Christian Science. After praying about this for several years, I resigned from my position as an engineer and manager in order to devote my time to praying for others and for the world. And today I find that the focus of my days has not changed at all from when I was a technical manager: I continue to try to the best of my ability to be true to the Book of the Law in thought and action. I affirm each day my spiritual perfection, my true identity as an expression of the Christ, Truth, and I endeavor to express the Christ in my work more effectively each day.

It is wonderfully freeing to realize that we answer only to God. Rather than being held captive by the opinions or whims of others, our measure of success is how well we are, in the words of Paul: “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5). Regardless of the state of one’s life or one’s résumé, this is the only true measure of success.