When things go well, we often exaggerate our role in things.
One of my daughters recently got her SAT scores back. Not going to go into too much detail, but suffice to say she got a fantastic score.
When I saw the results, I half jokingly told her mom we should congratulate ourselves on the great job we did to make it possible. I say half jokingly because if I’m being honest, part of me really did want to take more credit than I deserved to.
But the truth is it was 95% her (if not more).
Sure, I provided a stable environment for her to grow up. But when it comes to school, she requires zero supervision. I’m not even signed up for the online parent portal where I could monitor her grades, because there’s no need.
Or more accurately, I am signed up (because they made me) but I don’t know how to login because I haven’t in years.
She really has done it all herself.
The whole thing reminded me of something that happened several years ago. I was working on some deals that I needed to close, and we were hitting some snags. Since there was a problem, naturally I remembered pretty quickly to start praying.
The deals fell through. Like I was saying last week, we don’t always get what we ask for, at least not in the way we think we should.
But shortly after that, another deal came along that I wasn’t even looking for. A bigger one. And it turned out to be one of the rare ones where everything goes smoothly, quickly, and without trouble.
No problems at all.
As it was all happening, I started thinking, wow, I’ve really done a great job on this. I figured out who to call, when to call them, what to say, how to approach things, etc.
Then I caught myself.
When things were going badly, I wanted to lean on God and ask for His help. Then they turned around (spectacularly), and all of a sudden it was all because of me.
I guess at least I caught myself that time. I’m sure there were other times that I just congratulated myself and forgot about it, at least until the next struggle.
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying it when things go your way. Or taking some satisfaction in a job well done.
But there’s a difference between being grateful you had a part in something good and convincing yourself you made the whole thing happen.
Especially when you were asking God for help just a few days earlier.
P.S. One way to remember who deserves the credit is to spend more time in His Word.
I run another site called HisWordTogether.com that helps you stay on track reading through the Bible once a year. Every year.
No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.
Just steady time in the Word.
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