Planning to Succeed - Martin Wiles

Do your planning and prepare your fields before building your house. Proverbs 24:27 NLT

My name was in the pot, and with God’s help, I was planning to succeed.

Type A’s are known for planning—sometimes to excess. I was cursed from birth. Both my parents were Type A’s, and I followed suit. Every church I had led, I did so with a plan, and this time would be no different. When the board recommending me to the church asked if I had a vision for their church, I removed a pad and read off my list. I didn’t know if I’d be their pastor, but I had a plan just in case. 

Solomon’s advice was pertinent. Building a house before preparing one’s fields was foolish. Suppose a dry spell hit or enemies swooped in and stole the crop. Saving from a bountiful harvest and then building the house made more sense than taking on debt with no assurance of how to pay for it. 

When planning, we should make a point to include God. Since God says he wants to be involved in the details of our lives, involving him only makes sense. Although he won’t sit around a table and talk audibly to us, we can listen as he speaks to our spirits with his Spirit. Ideas will come that we would have never thought of on our own. Insights will flow. And we’ll feel a sense of peace when we’ve received his directions.

We should also include others in our planning. Although I had a list of plans before leading the church, I immediately began to include others. Amazingly, most of their suggestions were the same as mine, which assured me they also included God in their planning. Two heads are better than one, and lone rangers often become just that—alone. 

We can plan with confidence when we include God and other spirit-led believers. We can then couple confidence with optimism. If God is before and in the middle of the plans, they won’t fail. In fact, God’s plans can’t fail—which means we won’t when he is the author of our plans. Good planning means having a backup plan. I’ve often appeared to mess up God’s plan for my life, but somehow, he always brings the plan back to his plan. 

Get your plans from God and confidently move forward into your bright future.

Father, I ask for your guidance as I plan to accomplish your will. 

I invite you to try my book Grits, Grace, and Grands. If you have grands, this book is for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Known for What - Martin Wiles

When the queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame, which brought honor to the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. 1 Kings 10:1 NLT

Most know her only as the creator of Harry Potter. 

Most people don’t know what J. K. Rowling went through before becoming successful. Rowling first conceived the idea of Harry Potter in 1990 as she rode a train from Manchester to London. She began putting the fully-formed story onto paper but was interrupted when her mother died after a ten-year battle with Multiple Sclerosis.

Two years later, Rowling moved to Portugal, where she taught English, met a man, married, and had a daughter. One year later, the marriage ended. She then moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be closer to her sister. By this time, she had three chapters of the future famous book in her suitcase.

Rowling didn’t see herself as a successful person but a failure. She had no job and no money. She was also divorced and had a child. Bouts of depression assaulted her, and she eventually found herself signing up for welfare.  

By 1995, Rowling had finished the book—but had also experienced rejection from twelve major publishers. One year later, Bloomsbury, a small publishing house, accepted her manuscript and offered her a small advance. They published the book in 1997 but printed only one thousand copies, five hundred of which they distributed to libraries.  

Amazingly, in 1997 and 1998, Harry Potter won awards from Nestle Smarties Book Prize and the British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year. Today, Rowling’s books have sold more than four hundred million copies, and she is considered one of the most successful women authors in the United Kingdom.

King Solomon wrote, too, but people knew him for more than that. His fame made headlines, so much so that the queen of Sheba had to see him for herself. His material and chattel possessions amazed her, but so did his wisdom. Especially the way he solved a puzzle about which mother a particular baby belonged to. When two women came claiming a specific child belonged to them—and neither would tell the truth—Solomon demanded that the child be cut in half and one half given to each woman. Of course, the birth mother didn’t want her child killed, so she offered it to the woman making the false claim.

Some girls are known for wanting the bad boys, and some boys are known for wanting the bad girls. Rowling certainly isn’t the only person known for overcoming difficult circumstances and moving ahead to success. Successful people fill history’s pages. And other authors trump Rowland’s reputation.

Of all the things for which others could know us—or of all the things for which we might want to be known—God has his own list in mind. His list might not make us famous or known worldwide, but living by his directory will bring us peace, fulfillment, and joy, as we won’t discover anywhere else.

God’s roster includes honesty, integrity, selflessness, kindness, love, joy, and optimism. Things Jesus modeled while on earth. Traits some didn’t appreciate but that others admired. Things, however, that pleased his heavenly Father.

Our enemy will tempt us to be known for things that displease God, but God gives us a different list. When we allow others to know us by the things on God’s register, we’ll please God. And that, after all, is the most important thing in life. At the end of the day, what God thinks is all that matters.

Make up your mind to be known by those characteristics that reflect the God you serve.

Father, I want to be known as your follower and reflect your traits in my life. 

I invite you to try my book Hurt, Hope, and Healing in eBook or paperback. If you seek hope and healing because of the hurts you have faced, this book is for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Freedom to Fail or Succeed - Martin Wiles

Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Since you have not obeyed me by setting your countrymen free, I will set you free to be destroyed by war, disease, and famine. Jeremiah 34:17 NLT

I could have done better . . . but I chose not to.

Among the many things my parents did for me was provide the opportunity for a good education. When the public-school systems gave an adequate atmosphere, they sent me there. If we lived in places where the public-school systems lacked a good reputation, they scraped money together and sent me to private schools.

I had a good mindset about education in elementary school, doing my best and striving to get good grades. My middle school journey mimicked elementary—with the exception that peer pressure increased. Pressure to compromise my values. Pressure to do less than my best. After all, those students who scored high on quizzes and tests ruined the curve a teacher might give a class.

By the time high school arrived, I’d lost all interest in school. The wrong kind of friends, followed by the wrong type of actions, took over. My parents continued to goad me to do my best, just as they had in elementary and middle school. I didn’t listen. Regardless of their efforts to push me forward toward a college education, I continued to slide backward with a don’t-care attitude.

My journey in high school led to poor grades and to my eventually quitting. Fortunately, I came to my senses shortly thereafter and returned to graduate. Not until nine years after high school did I finally see the need to attend college. Perhaps I just needed to mature. Maybe I needed an attitude adjustment.

One thing my parents discovered was that they couldn’t force me to do well in school. I had to decide that. God found out the same with His Old Testament people. He had given them the Law, and He had sent prophets to continually remind them of the importance of obeying it. Nevertheless, they continued to wander away from His moral principles, just as I did with my attention to education. Finally, God gave them the freedom to fail in a big way: He allowed a foreign nation to take them captive for seventy years.

God hasn’t changed, nor have His commands and principles. He lays out His expectations and lovingly guides us to obey them. When we fail, He forgives if we ask, and He disciplines if we keep going our own stubborn way. But there comes a point—and no one knows when the point is—when He says, “Okay, do it your way.”

God gave me the freedom to fail in my educational journey, and He’ll do the same in our moral journey. Sometimes, failure is the only thing that brings us to our senses, so we’ll run back to Him. The good news is that He’s always willing to say “I forgive” when we come in faith and repentance.

If you have failed, run back to God. He’s waiting.

Prayer: Father, thank You for the forgiveness You offer when we fail. 

Tweetable: Are you failing or succeeding? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Failing to Success - Martin Wiles

My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. Psalm 119:71 NLT

“How does it taste?”

When my wife cooks something, and I am the first to eat it, I must be careful how I answer that question. And she had. A long time had passed since she had cooked a pound cake—something she once specialized in. She had texted me a picture of it while I was at work, and I couldn’t wait to get home and taste a slice. After all, pound cake is my favorite.

After supper, as I relaxed in my recliner, she brought me a piece of her cake, let me taste a few bites, and then asked the question. Truthfully, the cake was a might tough, but how could I tell her without hurting her feelings. I knew her. Cakes that didn’t meet her expectations went into the trash can. I had watched many a tasty cake slide from the pan and into the garbage. Cakes I would gladly have eaten. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to my pound cake.

“It’s okay,” I responded.

“What do you mean, okay?” she shot back.

“Well, you taste it and see what you think.” I wanted her to judge, not me.

Later, after she had finished her housework and sat down, she tasted a piece. “It’s tough,” she said.

Tough. The word I looked for but didn’t know how to say. Fortunately, she didn’t throw the cake away—at least not initially. I munched on a few pieces before the rest made its way into the trash can.

A few days later, not satisfied with her failure, she baked another one and texted me a picture. It stood beautifully on the cake place, but so did the other. When I got home, she proudly said, “Taste this one.” I did. No heaviness or toughness. Just right. My wife had failed her way to success. And I enjoy nothing better than seeing a smile cross her face when something she bakes turns out the way she wants.

In some strange way, the psalmist said his sufferings—the failures of life—brought advantages for him. They made him pay closer attention to God’s principles and commands.

Failure is only failure if we don’t try again or if we define ourselves by one mess up. Dad often reminded me of a familiar saying: “If at first, you don’t succeed, try and try again.” Good advice. Advice I’ve taken. Advice my wife has taken also when it comes to baking.

When failure or tough times come, introspection is always in order. Failure can come because we’ve sinned, because of sin in the world, because someone else has sinned, because we made an unwise decision, or because we’ve been stubborn and selfish. Knowing the reason behind the failure helps avoid the same mistake in the future.

God’s Word, as the psalmist said, provides just the advice we need for any and every situation. It gives encouragement for times of failure, and it gives principles that help us avoid failure in the first place. When we respond correctly to failure, success hides just around the corner.

Don’t let one failure define you.

Prayer: Father, thank You for guiding us through our failures so that we don’t lose hope. 

Tweetable: What makes you feel like a failure? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

The Measure of Success - Martin Wiles

You must give them my messages whether they listen or not. But they won’t listen, for they are completely rebellious! Ezekiel 2:7 NLT

Success isn’t always what we hoped or what others defined it as.

Apple began with two men in a garage. Years later, it is a $2 billion company with thousands of employees. Yet, in the beginning, the very company Steve Jobs founded fired him. Losing his job made him realize his passion for his work exceeded the disappointment of failure. He ventured into NeXT and Pixar, but eventually made his way back to Apple. Jobs said, “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”

And Bill Gates. A Harvard dropout, who co-owned a business called Traf-O-Data, which failed. But his skill and passion for computer programming turned this failure into success when he began the now-famous software company, Microsoft, which turned the then 31-year-old into the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. Gates said, “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”

The road to success often proves difficult, nor may it look the way we thought it would. It didn’t for the prophet Ezekiel. God called him to preach to God’s people, a rebellious and hardheaded lot. Most of them wouldn’t listen, but Ezekiel’s job was to give them God’s message whether they did or not. The people’s response would not gauge success for Ezekiel. Obedience would.

In our world, success is normally measured by job position, money, possessions, and relationships. God measures it differently—by obedience. And by a different attitude. Jesus said in God’s Kingdom, the last will be first and vice versa.

If we want to know success by God’s standard, we have to adopt a different attitude. Whether or not we have any of what the world defines as success is immaterial. When we obey God’s commands, live a holy lifestyle, and follow God’s plan, we achieve success. Nothing more, nothing less.

Initially, we may not enjoy the way God tells us to pursue success—as with Ezekiel, we may have to travel roads we’d rather not traverse—but God’s way remains the best choice. And what others think doesn’t matter. God’s opinion measures our success.

Ask God for the grace to help you pursue success His way.

Prayer: Father, give us the kind of success that pleases You, not others.

Tweetable: How do you measure your success? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Falling to Success - Martin Wiles

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. James 1:2-3 NLT

He came in and fell his way to success.

Jimmy was my favorite cousin—second cousin actually—and he was also my grandmother’s favorite nephew. He belonged to her sister, the one who died much too young from cancer they probably could have cured now.

Since this set of grandparents kept me much of the time when I was young, I saw Jimmy often. He loved to see my grandmother, his favorite aunt, and especially to get a couple of glasses of her famous sweet tea—two cups of sugar per gallon.

My grandmother’s favorite sitting spot was the end of her couch by the end table. Jimmy would knock at the back door, my grandfather would let him in, and he would walk through the kitchen and hall and into the living room.

That’s when the action began. After speaking to my grandmother, he strolled across the living room floor to get a hug, but just before he reached her, he buckled his legs and pretended to fall into her lap. He was a comic, and this was only one of his many shenanigans, but he fell his way into what he wanted: a hug.

I thought about his trick lately and how much truth inhabits it. Success never comes without fallings along the way—usually many of them. James told early believers their success in living the Christian life would only come through persecution. Not an inviting way to achieve fame. Through persecution, the early church blossomed, and through pain the believers would develop patience.

Jesus defined success as loving Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then others as myself. I must travel many side roads to reach that point. A regular pattern of taking up the spiritual disciplines being one of them—Bible study, prayer, meditation, worship, fellowship with other believers, evangelism. All of which require time, and in a busy world this means taking the initiative and planning.

While on the journey, we’ll fall—into temptation, into depression, into disappointment, into frustration, into unhealthy relationships, into busyness, and into many other things. But when we respond with faith and trust, these falls will lead to our eventual success. With faith, we’ll get up and trust God to lead us on to His goal for our lives.

Don’t let the falls of life lead you away from God’s goal for you: salvation and sanctification. Rather, let the falls propel you toward His desired end.

Prayer: Father, take the falls of our lives and make something beautiful from them.

Tweetable: Are your falls keeping you down? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Flashback Friday - Three P’s for Failure - Martin Wiles

Three P’s for Failure

What might appear to signal success can actually forecast failure.

Had I been Eve, I would have probably fallen to Satan’s temptations just as she did. Though I didn’t know her personally, I think I know her personality through her story. I would even venture to say my personality is similar. Psychology hadn’t been invented, but I’d risk concluding she had a Type A personality. She was driven. She hungered for more than God’s hand had dealt her. She wasn’t satisfied. She craved God’s qualities. She wanted more than 99% of the garden’s delights. She starved for them all. But what she imagined would bring delight and success delivered failure. Read more... 

Tweetable: How do you avoid the three P's of failure? 

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's encouragement through his love lines.

Flashback Friday - Success Ensured - Martin Wiles

Success Ensured

My two brothers and I grew up in a normal home (if there is such a thing). I suppose we also had normal expectations, but things didn’t materialize as we anticipated.

Our parents tended to our every need. Dad was a pastor, so he also cared for an extended family. We watched him and mom stick together through thick and thin. I suppose when we were young we imagined we’d have a storybook marriage like our parents with healthy kids and overall good health ourselves.

But life threw us curves our parents never experienced. Read more...

Tweetable: How do you measure success?  

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's encouragement through his love lines.

Throwback Tuesday - Never Beyond Failure . . . Never Beyond Use - Martin Wiles

Never Beyond Failure…Never Beyond Use

“I’ll never deny you.” He was sure of himself when he uttered those fateful words, but now all he could hear was that cursed rooster. 

“Hey, you’re one of his followers,” a young girl shouted as Peter mulled around in the courtyard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied. Then she began telling others, and he denied it again. “I don’t want to be identified with him and arrested too,” he muttered to himself. Then bystanders noted he was from Galilee and accused him of being Jesus’ follower. Now he added a curse to his denial. This was also the occasion when the rooster crowed and Jesus stared at him. Jesus’ prophecy came true after all. He was a failure. When Jesus needed him the most, he let him down. Read more...

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's encouragement through his love lines.