“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give
you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

I think it was Theodore Roosevelt who said, “The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.” I’m sure that’s why there are so many books about how to succeed in life. As we grow up, we learn the words success and failure and somewhere along the line we also are taught what these words mean, either by experience or by someone telling us we’re likely to be one or the other. Unfortunately so many people are told they are a failure or they won’t amount to anything, or words to that effect. Those words go deep into our souls and take root, placing limits on what we can become, eventually turning into limiting beliefs that we carry around wherever we go like a millstone tied around our neck. It not only limits what we can do, but it slows our progress. The reality is we will all encounter failure at some point in life, even when we think we have the best plans.

Then we read verses like the one above and think that God will give us the desires of our heart while ignoring the first part of the verse. When David wrote this particular Psalm, he was an old man (Psalm 37:25) so he was writing from the perspective of looking back on his life. If anyone knew about success and failure it was King David.

Think about what it must have been like to have been to be anointed king as a teenager, and then spend YEARS running from the current King Saul who wanted to kill him. Even when he spared Saul’s life, he watched Saul return to the throne while he lived in a cave. David had many times to reflect on the unfairness of life and I’m sure feeling like a failure at times.

But David knew that when he delighted in the Lord, meaning to put his heart right with God and seek after what God wanted for him and his life that the desires of his heart would be aligned with God and his purpose for his life. Even when David met with success he would later encounter failures. What we learn from his life is that he didn’t let those failures define him.

Our outlook on life should consist of dreaming and hoping for a better future, plan for good things, but also to not be stopped or thrown by failures, nor to be lulled by success. While success is certainly a better realm to desire to live in, there are pitfalls from thinking that we’re arrived and don’t need to do anything to maintain that success or to forget to be thankful for it.

Success and failure aren’t permanent.

A grateful heart is, and will sustain us in times of failure, and will keep a proper perspective in times of success.