From Vision to Reality
Failure & Success
Monday, November 1, 1999
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse:
Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy
(Psalm 126:5). Bonus Reading: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
As a child, I envisioned becoming a scientist or professor. I believed that my vision was inspired by my salvation in Christ. But the odds against it seemed astronomical. I was a black male from a working-class family of eight. My father had completed sixth grade, my mother, ninth grade.
As a youth, I was a disillusioned failure in almost everything other than school, where I was performing below my potential. During troubled times in my familydue to alcoholism, violence, poverty, ignorance, abuse, and confusionI frequently contemplated suicide. My failure to make my high-school basketball team was disheartening at the time; yet I learned to redirect my affections toward improving my studies. Enhanced proficiency at studying led to a scholarship to graduate school at one of the nation's most rigorous universities.
God uses our most severe failures to accomplish His positive plan for our lives, as long as we acknowledge our ultimate dependence on Him. The Lord engineered a series of traumatic events to purify my motives and conduct. Then slowly, over the decades, from the most unlikely circumstances, Christ had given me success.
Henry Lee (Hank) Allen in Men to Men
Personal Challenge:
What weakness of yours helps you to cling to Christ in complete dependence?
Thought to Apply:
Making a few failures early in life is of the greatest practical benefit.
Thomas Huxley (ENLGISH BIOLOGIST, 19TH CENTURY)
Credits: Adapted from--Tuesday: Lee N. June and Matthew Parker, Men to Men (Zondervan, 1996)
1999 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail mail@menofintegrity.net.
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