Ryan Downing
10/6/08

Why do certain people enjoy tremendous success in life while others never seem to be able to make it? Unfortunately for all of us, there is no universal secret to success that you can replicate and have the world at your fingertips. However, what we can do is analyze the lives of many successful people to see what character traits they share.

A characteristic you will find in most people who have accomplished much is their ability to endure through periods of failure. When they could have thrown in the towel and given up, they persevered, fought through their trials and emerged better than before. Then, learning from their lessons in failure, became great successes.

Throughout this series, we will explore the lives of a handful of these people. We will see the power of enduring through challenging circumstances and coming out of them with the vision and faith to continue to pursue that which you were born to do.

Many of the stories we will look at are of people who were not Christians. But regardless of faith, they still had an unbelievable endurance in life and can teach us something valuable about how we can live. It should be even more encouraging for the believers when they read these stories because they also have the power of the Holy Spirit active in their lives.