Daniel 4:29,30 “As the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, ‘Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”
Those brazenly self-exalting words led to an immediate humbling as God struck Nebuchadnezzar with madness. The king learnt the hard way that claiming the glory for himself rather than deflecting it to God was the pathway to ruin. His apparent success became cataclysmic failure as he was driven from his people and ate grass like cattle, until eventually his sanity was restored; and failure became success again as the humbled king now correctly attributed all glory to where it was due: “Now I praise and exalt and glorify the God of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is also able to humble” (Daniel 4:37).
Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem ‘If’ was written as a birthday gift to his son. It includes the following lines:
‘If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same,
Then yours is the earth and all that’s in it.
And, which is more, you’ll be a man, my son.’
Paul Tournier put it this way: “It is extremely difficult to define failure and success. The line between them is so elusive. Today’s failure may turn out to be tomorrow’s success and today’s success, tomorrow’s failure. The infinite value of Biblical perspective, is that it changes our attitude to the events of life… It is no longer a matter of whether they constitute success or failure, but rather what they mean in God’s purpose.”
So let’s not worry about whether we’re being successes or failures, let’s concentrate on seeking God’s purposes in all our activities.
Lord Jesus, I choose to be obedient to your call to walk a humble path today as I follow you. Amen!
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