It’s easier to recognise success when you’re looking back than it is looking forwards. For some of us, it can be many years before we recognise our success, celebrate it, and feel secure in it. That’s because we don;t always see it from the right perspective. The Mississippi River needs a two-mile-wide steel span bridge to get across at its widest point, whereas it’s such a small stream at its source that you can jump over it. But it’s still the same river. Most things start small! Have you ever heard the Serenity Prayer? It goes like this: ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.’ It was first prayed in a little church in Massachusetts by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr during a Sunday morning service. Only a small group of people was in the congregation that day, but one person liked the prayer and, after the service, he asked Niebuhr for a copy. ‘Here,’ Niebuhr responded, handing over a crumpled piece of paper. ‘I doubt I’ll ever have any more use for it.’ Well, guess what? Next to the Lord’s Prayer, it’s the most used prayer in the world. Isn’t it ironic that Niebuhr’s prayer became so popular? Evidently, his perspective wasn’t all that great, because he didn’t know what he had. With that story in mind, read this Scripture again and really think about it: ‘Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would increase abundantly.’ With God’s help, you can turn your failure into success and go on to greater things.
