Success and Failure Blog

           When the sky meets the earth a miracle happens and man says its science. The eyes of the unseen have not the sight to see that no big bang could ever achieve such greatness. If they were given the eyes to see they would see with a newness of spirit the brilliance of this creation. They wouldn’t be concern with the environment, instead focus their eyes on the creator who made it and will keep renewing it.        

            We are all concern for our future and not on our relationship with our Lord. We have become self-absorb with our needs that we stop focusing on our path to freedom. We forgot that all roads lead to Christ. 

            I have been rereading Matthew 15:1-20 it’s not about washing your hands that make you unclean but what comes out of your mouth from your heart that makes you unclean.  I knew that I had unclean thoughts and I was closed off not just from the Lord but from others. My angry, sickness, and depression were outward signs that not all was well. It is time to stop the deception and ask for forgiveness. 

            I am sorry Lord that I have been consumed with me and my issues that I removed myself from everything around me. I have kept my issues close to me and not giving them to you.  I have walled up my heart so I couldn’t be hurt by anyone, Lord. I was keeping my distance because I was angry with you. I give you my heart that you will take from it the dark places that makes me stumble. In the place of the dark places put peace, joy, perseverance, long suffering, and love.  Encompass about me songs of deliverance that will permeate everything around me like a cocoon of safety that I may grow in your likeness until the day you come. 

            We cannot run far enough away from our Father’s love for us. The signs of HIS love are all around us from the big bright sun to the delicate tiny fingers of a new born baby His love permeates everything around us. 

            We are the Lord’s one small miracle after another. You were created to be loved by the Father. There is nothing you have done that the Lord won’t chase after you like HE did for me. 

            One thing I have learned through my journey is HE NEVER gives up on me.             

            (Your Name) is greatly blessed, highly favored and deeply loved. By Jesus Christ.

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.               — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes but morning comes. Keep hope alive. Don’t you surrender!  Suffering breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint.”   –Jesse Jackson, American civil rights activist,minister

As you read the quote by Rev. Jesse Jackson keep these verses in mind from James 1:2-4,  “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Let us take care, in times of trial, that patience, and not passion, is set to work in us: whatever is said or done, let patience have the saying and doing of it. When the work of patience is complete, it will furnish all that is necessary for our Christian race and warfare. We should not pray so much for the removal of affliction, as for wisdom to make a right use of it. Here is something in answer to every discouraging turn of the mind, when we go to God under a sense of our own weakness and folly. If, after all, any should say, This may be the case with some, but I fear I shall not succeed, the promise is, To any that asketh, it shall be given. No condition of life is such as to hinder rejoicing in God.

(bible verse notes taken from Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible).

The following is a poem that I came across many years ago. Its seems just as appropriate today as it did back then. See if you remember hearing it, as well.

Don’t Quit by Edgar A. Lewis

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

More bible commentary on James Chapter 1 can be found at Matthew Henry’s Commentary