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For many people one of their goals in life is success and is something that is valued in most cultures beginning from newborns with developmental skills up through senior adults. The criteria to achieve it varies from culture to culture and person to person. Such criteria are used often to measure us for academic success, occupational success, relational success and more. It can feel like our future and life is hanging in the balance.

Some of the measurements are very subjective and others are objective and involve excelling on various tests and skill sets. This tends to add to stress as we go through the assessment process as we fear failure or being condensed into such a narrow criteria when there is more to us than gets considered. Will we ever be enough?

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It isn’t that such measures aren’t important but as we move through one season into another, we begin to see that some of the measures that most stressed us don’t even come up later in a new season.

When I look back at my academic life from grade school through a professional degree, I often smile at how stressed I was making the required benchmarks. I watched as our children faced the same thing and now our six grandchildren as well. I chuckle over a couple of math courses in high school and a physical science course in college that nearly did me in as I realize the courses were required for one reason or another but I never used that information again.

Maybe the point of them wasn’t always the information itself but what the challenges created in us and how we responded to them. 

We all know that honor rolls, trophies, certificates, and degrees are things we are asked to accomplish in order to succeed. When you consider the late nights of study, cramming, faltering, and panic we may experience, are there any other measures we might consider?

While watching a movie a few nights ago one of my favorite actresses (Maggie Smith) spoke a line that has been echoing in my head ever since: “The measure of success is how we handle disappointment.”

Wow! 

All along those tests and benchmarks, we experience disappointment and it isn’t something we tend to appreciate as it weighs us down far too often. It can cause us to sometimes give up or throw in the towel, berate ourselves, and develop negative internal messages and mindsets. But the thing is that if we choose to keep moving forward or finding the better path, we succeed in ways we could not have guessed possible.

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”  Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was not the only one who failed often on his way to what the world would call success. 

Down through history in all areas of life we discover many who experienced disappointment but how they handled it made all the difference. I see many in biblical stories as well as other areas.

Abraham and Sarah wanted a child, had been promised one, but years passed with no child and yet Abraham believed God in the midst of the disappointment when an angel appeared in his old age to affirm the promise would be fulfilled. Hannah, wife of Elkanah, also longed for a child but continued to seek God and was ultimately blessed with Samuel whom she dedicated back to God.

Joseph, delight and favorite of his father, Jacob, was disappointed when his family didn’t believe in the dreams he kept having. His brothers’ decision to sell him into slavery could have caused him to give up on the gift of his dreams from God but he didn’t despite the hard path in an Egyptian prison. His dreams there led him to the court of Pharoah and when he interpreted this leader’s dreams, he saved that country and his family from a terrible famine.

The disciples of Jesus were expecting a king and a kingdom on earth rather than the path Jesus took. Their response to that disappointment varied and some were more obvious than others. Peter betrayed Jesus and then wept and repented and was given grace and leadership in the birthing of the church. Judas betrayed Jesus which resulted in his trial and crucifixion and when Judas realized his failure, he hanged himself.

Handling disappointment is never easy but we always have a choice. That choice leads to success when we trust in the One who created us. He knows the story we are in the midst of that is not yet at an end. And guess what?  He measures success differently and in the only way that ultimately matters.

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”  Corrie ten Boom