Would I have published two books if I had known? These statistics I came across last week were thought-provoking.

            Only 3% of those who start writing a book finish it.

            Of those 3% who finish writing their book, only 20%  will actually publish it.    

            That’s about .6%: one person in every 200 wannabe authors.

I’d like to think I would have written my books even if I knew the odds were against it. But apart from the Lord’s working in and through me, I don’t have a good track record.

For example, as I neared high school graduation, I considered a career in Advertising Design. But as soon as I heard it was competitive and difficult, my mindset shifted from “Could I?” to “I can’t.”  What about a medical career? I read that pre-med classes were very hard and only a few were chosen. My lack of confidence caused me not to even try.

And years later, I swallowed the world’s opinion that Chinese is the hardest language to learn. I never got past my fear of failure to really try.

Publishing my books was a different story. The only explanation I can think of is that God gave me the simple faith of a child. I “whacked my way through the publisher’s jungle” one step at a time, and while I had discouraging moments, it never occurred to me not to finish. My friend Maggie’s being there made a tremendous difference, keeping me on track and encouraging me at low points.

My eyes weren’t on what others were doing or not doing, how many others were successful or not, or how much hard work it would be. I was convinced that He was calling me to write these books, and that He would be glorified by my telling the stories of His faithfulness.  I thought of you and how I had to let you know what a good and trustworthy God He is!

There are decisions every day in which I can simply take God at His Word and follow His leading; or I can fill my head with the world’s opinion on how likely it is that I will succeed. It is kind of like being surrounded by a bunch of mirrors that are all distorted to some extent or another, like carnival mirrors.

There’s only one mirror that is completely accurate, and that is the one that reflects what our heavenly Father says about us.  Since God is the God of the impossible, it is irrelevant how difficult something is, as long as He is behind the idea. Jesus is much more interested in helping us succeed at what He calls us to do than we realize.

Life is simpler when we say, ”Lord, what do you want me to do?” and then do it. This is not promoting the power of positive thinking; it is promoting the power of the powerful God when we step into His purpose for our lives.

What negative statistic have you sabotaged your success with? What Bible truth could you replace that limitation with?