Have you ever gone all out for something, put all your heart and soul into it, just to later watch it fall flat out in failure? You sit there baffled just trying to figure out what went wrong. What could you have done differently? Was it something you said or did?

Isaiah 5 starts off as a beautiful love song. It says in verses 1-2: (NKJV)

“Now let me sing to my Well-beloved. A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:

My Well-beloved (meaning God) has a vineyard (God’s people) on a very fruitfull hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; So he expected it to bring forth good grapes, But it brought forth wild grapes (meaning disappointments).”

There will be times in life we will set out with a purpose, a goal, a dream and things just don’t go as we expect. We can go all out and do everything just right, but for one reason or another we don’t get the successful return we expect. We are disappointed. We planted with great expectation but nothing bappened.

I remember years ago, when I decided to become a realtor. I studied day and night. I sat in every training class. I followed the curriculum to the T. I followed every instruction handed down to me in this big binder. I made cold calls daily and drove for hours jotting down numbers and door knocking on For Sale By Owner homes. I expecetd a good return for my hard labor. But that never happened. I never found my success. If anything, just a few years later I threw in the towel and quit.

Although I had prepared day and night, my efforts did not bring me the results I expected. I planted the perfect grapes to say, but still ended up with vines of sour useless grapes. In my case, one thing was missing. I had no heart for real estate. I didn’t seek my own voice. I expected to find my success by following someone else’s successful technique, but I did it with lack of passion. Lack of enthusiam. I was afraid. Afraid of failure. So my mind was hard set more on failure than my success.

When I read this scripture my heart sank. I saw how much love God put into creating the life we have today. He did everything in His power to create a life full of all this beauty and innocence. He planted the perfect seeds. He nurtured us with the very best expecting the very best from us in return. Never once did He believe all His hard work would result in disappointment. Yet all the while He is expecting beautiful results from all His hard work, we disappoint Him. Yet He never gave up on us.

There will times in our lives we plant the best of what we have and success may not follow. Do not allow yourself to become discouraged. Do not allow yourself to give up and walk away. God may have been disappointed time and time again, but never once has He given up on us. If anything, every morning His mercies are renewed. Every morning we start with a fresh new day filled with so many opportunities to correct what went wrong from yesterday. To learn from our previous mistakes. To start fresh with a renewed attitude.

I wish I had taken my mistakes from real estate and learned from them to create a successful career. But real estate surely was not in my purpose. I learned valuable lessons that today I can apply to the lessons I teach. To encourage others and inspire them to not allow fear to hinder their ability to create that successful career they envision.

Keep planting your very best with hearts of expectation. Keep nurturing the seeds you have planted. And don’t give up when faced with disappointments. Keep striving for success believing that your harvest is soon to come. Keep believing in those dreams and goals.

Prayer for today:

“Father I thank you for never giving up on me. Thank you for renewing my spirit each day I awake. Thank you for encouraging me to keep pushing forward, especially on those days I don’t see my harvest come to fruit. In Jesus name, I thank you and ask you to continue leading my way as I walk through this precious journey with you.”