What Are Your Secrets for Success?

Secrets for success. People like to hear them, read them, and discuss them. But apply them?

Maybe.

At last month’s writer’s conference in Estes Park, Colorado, senior editor at Harvest House Publishers, Kathleen Kerr, shared her secret for writing novels. Attendees watched as she wrote three big, black letters on the white board:

BIC.

Turning to face us, she said, “B-I-C: Butt in chair.” Then she snapped the lid on her dry-erase marker.

We understood that the chair must be positioned in front of a desk or table that holds a computer, typewriter, or notepad and not a television.

This morning as I contemplated Kerr’s acronym, I thought of a biblical abbreviation Jesus could have used:

HOP.

Hand on plow.

“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62 NIV).

Both acronyms speak to commitment.

When I was a kid, my dad let me make a couple of runs with the tractor and plow. He told me to keep my eyes straight ahead, fastened on a point of focus. I couldn’t look back to check my work, or my rows would turn out like the proverbial cow’s hind leg. 

The simple facts are, I can’t write a book if I'm not writing, I can’t plow a straight row when I'm looking over my shoulder, and I can’t serve God wholeheartedly if I have divided loyalties.

How about you? To what are you committed? Where is your focus?

What’s really important?