on success

I think most of us, including myself, have a mistaken idea of success. I'm not sure what it is but there seems to be this innate desire in us that our homes, our spouses, and our children all radiate success. And when they don't we feel like failures. When our children are ornery or take wrong turns, we feel we've failed. When we go through financial difficulty, we feel we've failed. When we have difficulty in a relationship, it seems like failure. While some difficulties in life may be completely of our own making, I think others are designed specifically for us. Even a gift from God. God knows each of us better than we know ourselves. If we are to overcome our weaknesses and develop talents and strengths, we must be tested and tried and do things that are hard. Sometimes very hard. But in the end, after the trial has passed, often we can see the hand of God in our lives and how the difficulty or hardship has helped us become a better person. And much of the time we are growing and learning are times of difficulty, but not failure. Success comes from a lifetime of patiently learning from our hardships, developing faith in the Lord, and becoming better from our challenges.