THE SECRET OF SUCCESS

“I answered them by saying, ‘The God of heaven will give us success. We, his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.’” – Nehemiah 2:20

In a famous study by Victor and Mildred Goertzel, entitled “Cradles of Eminence,” the home backgrounds of 300 highly successful people were investigated. These 300 subjects
had made it to the top. They were men and women whose names everyone would recognize as brilliant in their fields, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Winston
Churchill, Albert Schweitzer, Clara Barton, Gandhi, Einstein, and Freud. The intensive investigation into their early home lives yielded some surprising findings:

• Three-fourths of the children were troubled either by poverty, by a broken home, or by rejecting, over-possessive, or dominating parents.
• Seventy-four of 85 writers of fiction or drama and 16 of the 20 poets came from homes where, as children, they saw tense psychological drama played out by their parents.
• Physical handicaps such as blindness, deafness, or crippled limbs characterized over one-fourth of the sample.

How did these people go on, then, to such outstanding accomplishments? Most likely by compensation. They compensated for their weaknesses in one area by excelling in another. 

God expects us to use what we have to the best of our abilities. Today in prayer, praise the Lord that by faith in Him, we have success.  

“A man is not far from the gates of heaven when he is fully submissive to the Lord’s will.” – Charles H. Spurgeon

God’s Word: “He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success.” – 2 Chronicles 26:5