Success without compromise

This sunday I was listening to a Christian radio station while driving to church, and I heard a guy praying for the audience. It was a very nice prayer, asking God to bless the listeners and guide them and let them be a light for the people around them (ie non-christians).

Towards the end, he prayed that the listeners may have "success without compromise".

This stuck in my mind and I have to admit when I first heard it I was a little taken aback. Of course what exactly he meant by "success without compromise" I'm unsure of. But when I first heard it I thought it meant that we may have success (in the normal sense of the word, meaning worldly success) without compromising our Christian values. I guess it could also mean the other way around: that we be successful in a spiritual sense (pleasing God and being a light to others) without compromising our worldly needs.

Why did this statement offend me slightly? It's what we all would love to have, right? The best of both worlds - to be successful in life without compromising our conscience. I admit that I would love to have this 'success without compromise'. Currently, I spend a lot of time studying and the amount of time I spend serving others, or even just participating with others in religion, is compromised. That offends my conscience. I try to maintain my bible reading and prayers everyday but sometimes I am just so tired I only read a few lines of the bible before I know I will need to shut it or I will sleep with my head on top of it (and ruin my lovely expensive leather-bound silver-trimmed blue-ribboned bible). Success without compromise, yes, that would be nice. (I am being honest here...)

But to pray for it? I feel it is almost like saying to God: "Yes, I love you, but I also love the world, so please don't make me compromise my success in the world."... or "The worldly things are so important to me I don't want have to compromise them". Of course, I am not saying that following God necessarily means that we have to be poor, in fact, there is a school of thought that God intends for us to enjoy the fruits of His creation. But to pray to God that we don't have to compromise?

As I said before, I am currently in a state of 'compromise'. If I go to all the extra youth group activities, I don't study, and I fall behind, or at least feel like I am falling behind. If I don't, I feel guilty. I have never prayed for Him to take that guilt away, I just rely on his mercy and understanding. I also try to make my learning experience an act of worship, reminding myself of the ingenuity of His creation when I study. I try to remind myself to do mini-prayers throughout the day (something I read from a Philip Yancey book). I pray for Him to forgive me, to open my mind to his creation, and to allow me to be a good doctor one day. But never 'success without compromise'. The idea of it itself is strange.

I am in the process of finding in the bible all the bits that indicate our relation to the worldly, and how we are to enjoy this 'success'. This is an interesting topic, so I will probably consult my bible study leaders and the bible itself, and post here with the results. This is an appeal to whoever is reading this: what do you think of this "Success without compromise"? Perhaps I misunderstood the guy. All comments welcome. Even if you know me personally. Really.