Success: Listening and Obeying

How much of 'success' is hard work, and how much is a gift from God?  A lot of people quote the old proverb that success is "10% inspiration
and 90% perspiration" which leaves the real effort up to us. Is that really it? 

A story might help illustrate.  The Lord promised Abram in Gen. 15:4, “you will have a son of your own who will be your heir” and verse 6 says that "Abram believed God."  The Lord sent Abram a vision as part of a covenant ceremony (described in the rest of that chapter) so that should have sealed Abram's belief.  But, several years later, Abram still didn't have a son.  Sarai, his wife, thought she had a solution, by having Abram father a child by her slave Hagar -- that was an accepted practice in the culture, so perhaps Abram thought it was a good way for the promise to be fulfilled.  But if you read further, you realize that wasn't the Lord's plan, and Hagar's pregnancy just complicated life.  It would have been simpler, perhaps, if Abram had stopped to ask the Lord if this was what he had in mind. 

Most of us have no trouble admitting we need divine help for the really tough parts of our lives.  But we tend not to ask for help with everything. That's not wise!

A friend of mine asked me to pray that he would rest his problems on the shoulders of the Lord instead of trying to carry them himself, and that's wisdom straight from the word of God:
"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track."(Proverbs 3:5-6, The Message).  And I was reminded the same thing while meditating, when the Holy Spirit asked me, "So, do you really think your solutions are better than mine?  Is that why you get up some days and start trying to handle problems without humbling yourself in prayer and my words to you first?" Ouch...

To really "listen for God's voice in everything" means taking the whole day to him before it starts, responding to challenges slowly enough that we have time to listen to him, and letting him have the last word.  That's tough for us self-starters, but it takes less time to listen and make the good decision the first time, than to go fast and then have to do it all over because we didn't listen.  How about deciding, once and for all, to listen to God first, every day, about everything?  He will direct us!