Success and Failure

November 27, 2021  

If you want to know a man’s character, don’t look only at how he handles failure; see how he handles success. Success can take you places you’ve never gone before, but those places aren’t always good. The Bible is filled with stories of people who began well, but finished poorly.   Uzziah, mentioned in the book of Isaiah, was sixteen when he became king, and ruled for 52 years. He sought the LORD, did what was right, and was blessed with success: “As long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper.” (2 Chron. 26:5) “But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction.” (2 Chron. 26:15)  

St. Paul understood this temptation. He was plagued with some sort of weakness from which he begged God three different times to be free. God’s answer? “My grace is sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (1Corinthians 12:9) Notice that God didn’t promise to make Paul stronger, but to use his weakness. Had Paul been delivered from his “thorn in the flesh,” it is quite possible God wouldn’t have been able to use him so powerfully as he did.  

It’s not my failures that worry me; it’s the successes. My head is too easily turned, my heart too easily swayed. Great success could very easily do what failure was unable to accomplish, by causing me to lose my grip on grace and trust in my own ability. The day that happens—the day my heart is lifted up, I will be well along the road to destruction. May God pardon my failures and preserve me from my successes. God