Here I am at age 6 with a bandaged playground injury sitting on the knee of Uncle Henry, the man who was the grandfather I never had.

Scripture

So it is good to wait quietly
for salvation from the Lord.
And it is good for people to submit at an early age
to the yoke of his discipline:

For no one is abandoned
by the Lord forever.

Lamentations 3:26, 27, 31

Observation

What is the recipe for creating a person of success? We would think that it would begin with plenty of love, nurture, compassion, encouragement, grace, kindness, and all of the other best intentions we have for our children.

But experience with people shows again and again it is those who have started life with the gift of hardship who are often most successful. Some of the most successful people I have known began life in poverty, abuse, rejection, and pain. But it was that early hardship that introduced them to the secrets of life success.

“It is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline”, Jeremiah wrote.

For those who are passing through hardship in their early years, there is hope in these words. With the Lord there is no freedom from pain, but instead our hope is that our pain can be used for his purposes. Those God wishes to grace with success will often be given the gift of hardship early in life to teach them the lessons of success. Those who have suffered while they are young should have the most hope of better things to come. As A.W. Tozer said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” (From Glorify his name! Root of the Righteous, chapter 39.)

Jeremiah was an old man as he wrote these words, but he could remember his years as a young prophet suffering great abuse. Now as an old man he was watching young men of Jerusalem suffering their first bruises in the aftermath of war. Jeremiah made quite a list of hardships a young man can experience that are signs of future success:

…walled in (verse 7)

…heavy chains (verse 7)

…blocked with a high stone wall (verse 9)

…target for his arrows (verse 12)

…arrows deep into my heart (verse 13)

…people laugh at me (verse 14)

…chew on gravel (verse 16)

…rolled in the dust (verse 16)

But still Jeremiah wrote,

Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends
His mercies never cease.

Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning. (verses 21-23)

It seems that the best view of the Lord comes not at the top, but from the bottom.

I remember when I first moved to Australia, living amongst the tall gum trees of the Dandenong Mountains. I went for a walk with my camera to take pictures to send to my family in America. I wanted to give them some sense of the slender stature of the eucalypts of Australia. I took my Kodak Instamatic and placed it at the base of the tree looking upward through the branches to the crown. When the pictures were developed I discovered that trees are best appreciated not from a distance but from the bottom. As the camera lens captures the slender trunk and waving branches we can get a feel for how mighty a tree can be. And so it is with the Lord. His greatness of mercy so fresh every sunrise is seen best not from the high blessings of life but from the low hardships.

Application

I must embrace my hardships if I am to be successful in life. Success begins when I don’t lose heart with my early failures but see them as but the precursors of success.

Prayer

Father, use all that I have experienced in life both good and bad to prepare me for better days to come. Amen.