Our Daily Manna

TOPIC: FAILURE BREEDS SUCCESS! 1

BASIC SCRIPTURES: JOSHUA 7: 2-7: 8: 1-2, 25-26

Welcome to today’s devotion! I pray that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will open your eyes to deeper secrets in His Word in the Name above all names. Often when we discuss success and successful people, we forget to mention the fact that most stories of success are preceded by seasons of failure. We read about successful people forgetting that they probably have gone through seasons of failure before they eventually became successful. Winston Churchill put it this way, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Today, the world celebrates men like Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and women like Oprah Winfrey without telling us the stories behind their glory. This is the reason why sometimes, part of this devotional is dedicated to telling the story behind the glory of successful men and women. It may interest you to know that before Microsoft was born, Bill Gates, known to be one of the wealthiest men in the world today, initially suffered failure in business.

Bill Gates first business was indeed a failure. He started a business known as Traf-0-Data. It was a partnership between Bill Gates, Paul Gilbert and Paul Allen. Unfortunately, the machine they had built to process the data flopped in the process of presenting it to a traffic employee of Seattle County in America. But as God would have it, this business helped to set Bill Gates and his business partner, Paul Allen, up for major success with Microsoft. Although Bill Gates failed in his first business attempt, this did not discourage him from trying again. Almost the whole world, one way or the other, watches that lady called Oprah Winfrey on television. It may also interest you that Oprah had a rocky start in life. In her early years, not only was her living condition and that of her entire family rough, she also suffered abuse by people that were very close to her. At the age of 14, she became pregnant. The boy she gave birth to as a result of that pregnancy died shortly after birth. Today, she is not married and has no child, but nobody remembers that her first child died! She was hired later by a local television station to read news, but things went wrong for her.

The producer said she was “unfit for television,” so she was fired! Baby died, FIRED from job, yet she refused to quit dreaming! In 1983, Oprah relocated to Chicago to host a low-rated show called, ‘A.M. CHICAGO.” Within a few months, the show went from last in the ratings to the number 1 show at that time. This led to the show being re-named “The Oprah Winfrey Show which has become known worldwide. Wow! The beauty of failure is that it is the womb that carries Success! Joshua, in today’s story had failed in his attempt to conquer the small city called Ai. The men of this small country killed some gallant and very valiant 36 Israeli soldiers. The whole of the Israeli Armed Forces suffered depression, fear and discouragement. Verse 5 of Chapter 7 says,”…wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.” However, Joshua went back to the drawing board and put himself together to fight again!
Eventually Israel prevailed over Ai for “it was, that all that fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai (Joshua 8:25). People of great minds say that it is not failure that matters but what you do with failure. Have you failed before or are currently in the pit of failure? Are you facing delays and setbacks’? See them as stepping-stones to greatness. Put yourself together again and get ready for an ELEVATION-a greater height of glory!

PRAYER POINTS: Take Song 3: Blessed assurance…

1. Pray on today’s word as led now.
2. God of Joshua, God of ELEVATION, strengthen me again and again to move forward to success. Lord, in 2020, position me for success now and forever. Let the spirit of defeat/ discouragement disappear!