British playwright George Bernard Shaw put it this way:
There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire, and the other is to gain it. We don’t look at it that way. In our eyes, gaining your heart’s desire is the very purpose of life itself. But how many people have achieved their dreams only to be ruined in the process? Success can be just as big a temptation as failure, perhaps more so, since success tends to make us take life for granted. While it is true that God speaks to us both ways, we tend to listen more when God speaks through sorrow, pain, loss, and personal failure. Success tends to make us complacent, but failure cannot be denied.
Case in point is Nebuchadnezzar just before his insanity kicked in:
The king spoke, saying, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”
God’s answer was to paraphrase, “King, you are nuts, and before “The Ed Sullivan Show” is over, you are going to be acting like an animal.”
It took seven years before sanity returned. Don’t make the same mistake.
Give it some thought.
Gary