The Lord is my inheritance and my cup.
You are the one who determines my destiny.
Psalm 16:5
Thinking that success is God’s goal for your life is a total lie. When you pray, don’t ask him to give you fame and fortune. Those things of this world mean nothing in the life of faith.
God might give you success and fortune if you are faithful, but this success is never his goal or the goal of the God Girl. God doesn’t need you to be successful in order to save lives or to get done what he wants to get done. All the cattle on the hills are his (see Ps. 50:10). He created every living thing; they all belong to him (see Ps. 24:1). So it’s wrong to believe that he needs your success or that you need success in order to serve him. God is concerned about your holiness, not your comfort. He wants you to be more like his Son, Jesus. His goal wasn’t popularity, fame, or even success, but sacrifice. He’s our living example. When your focus is success, your focus is yourself. But your focus should be God and his kingdom. Your first question should be, “Will this benefit the kingdom?” When your first thought is, “How will this benefit me?” you are proving you worship not God but yourself. What a sad state it is to be more concerned with your own life than with the life giver! Instead, be one of those the psalmist talks about as people who “lead holy lives on earth” (Ps. 16:3).
As you realign your goals with the Father’s, every minute becomes a success—even in your failures. Failure in the eyes of the world isn’t always failure in God’s eyes. Throughout time he has used the failed actions of his people to achieve his desired end. Don’t let your failure to succeed in this world get you off track from the true success of following Jesus no matter how crazy that might seem.