There is one guarantee in a race: if you don’t start, you can’t win. Seems simple, yet we have a tendency to live that way too often. We have a dream, a promise, a vision but we don’t start.
The only way you can succeed is to start. The only sure way not to succeed is not to start. God wants you to start so you can succeed.
Everything God has ever done has been successful. In fact, God has never had an unsuccessful thought. Success is what God does. God wants that for your entire year—and for the next decade.
What is success? Success is to become everything God designed you to be—what you deeply desire to be. Success isn’t about position or applause—it’s about the deep-felt satisfaction of knowing you’ve lived out your life as strong as you could. If you’re a forklift driver, strive to be the best. If you’re selling insurance, aspire to be the top salesman in your district. If you’re teaching, win the kids’ hearts.
God intends for you to succeed. He said about you:
“I know what I’m thinking about you. It’s surely not about your destruction—in fact, it’s about a successful future and a life full of hope!” (Jeremiah 29:11, my paraphrase).
To succeed, you need to start. After you start, finish. Paul wrote this to you:
“Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12).
Finishing requires tenacity, boldness, endurance, sweat. Nothing happens without that. I’ve met many young men who want to start something—a business, a church, a music venture, an educational program. When I talk about a launch that will include 7-day workweeks and 14-hour days, their enthusiasm diminishes. But what they start they can finish if they’ll endure.
Nothing great happens without a tenacious spirit. Endurance is activated by hope. Our hope is based on the blood of Christ. Our hope is not in our strength but in Christ’s strength.
Hope means trusting God in the midst of our human fears, doubts, and disappointments. When dismay, frustration, disappointment come…
“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15).
Your success is in Christ. Christ is our hope. Remember, success is not what the world says. Success means to fully satisfy your personal design.Start the race, finish strong
