Dr. Charles Stanley usually says, “Obey God and leave all the consequences to him.” That is such a powerful biblical principle.
Obey God. Trust Him. Pray hard. Work hard. And leave all the results and consequences up to him. We will be judged by obedience and not by comparing our results to others deemed more successful than us. As Malcolm Gladwell showed us in his phenomenal book Outliers: The Story of Success, our success is greatly determined by factors outside ourselves.
The Bible shows us that different people are given different quantities of talents and opportunity (Matthew 25:14-30). We cannot compare ourselves with others. We simply need to obey God and leave all the results to him. Obeying God includes praying hard, working hard, developing our talents, learning and growing ourselves, seeking to use the best strategies to ensure success. But in the end, King Solomon was wise when he remarked,
“I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time.” Ecclesiastes 9:11 NLT.
God is the one who puts people in the right place at the right time. He determines when we are born and when we die and he can determine anything in between.
