Happy New Year to all readers of this column. I pray that 2025 will deliver its best to you all. This month marks the 17th year of this column. When the column started in January of 2008, I had not the faintest idea that it would be sustained for so long. I am grateful to all of you readers who have made the writing worth it. I am also grateful to the Management of the Tribune for keeping the column running for that length of time. Ultimately, the biggest thanks go to the Almighty God who has given us life and capacity to do what we do.
As we begin another year, I want to start a series dedicated to everyone who has a dream or vision designed to solve a human problem. Quite often, the road seems rough. The odds sometimes appear stacked against you in such a way that you feel that it would be practically impossible to accomplish what is in your heart.
Giving up is not an option. The world only makes room for those who know where they are going. If your vison is inspired by God, trust that all the circumstances, no matter how daunting and discouraging they may appear, will work to your advantage.
No matter what you do in 2025, keep your dream alive and never stop fighting for it!
Tis series will be anchored on a short passage of the Bible in Luke 2:1-6:
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed… And Joseph also went up from Galilee… unto…Bethlehem… to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
Do you keep a diary? If you do, what are your reasons for doing so? A look into some diaries can be quite informative and may reveal an inability in many people to think beyond the events of the past; what somebody did to them yesterday, the way somebody looked at them two years ago, etc. Often, this is the only reason why some people keep diaries.
A diary does not have a character of its own; it takes its character from the one who keeps it. It simply reflects who you are. So if you specialize in spending significant time reflecting on negativity, your diary will contain little that is positive. The tragedy in that is that those who don’t know how to focus on positive memories will find it difficult to find motivation for the future.
Someone once told me that the reason for his low self-esteem was that his parents slapped him around a lot when he was a small child. While I agree that his childhood experience may have been responsible ‘ab initio’ for his lack of self-worth, I made it very clear that it should not be used as an excuse for the way he feels about himself as an adult. The real reason for his lack of self-confidence was that he chose not to move on from his background.
No one has a choice in deciding the place or circumstances of his birth. If God had called you to a council meeting and asked you where you would like to be born, you probably would not have chosen your actual birthplace. Some would probably have chosen the home of a highly successful Fortune 500 businessman with only one wife and with every material provision in place. Lacking nothing materially, you would have loved spending your holidays in Acapulco, Hawaii, the Caribbean …etc. I for one, would most likely have chosen to be born in Buckingham Palace or the White House to the incumbent occupants of those places at the time I was born! Unfortunately, God didn’t seek my opinion or desire on the matter. Ouch!
Notwithstanding, no matter how lowly or inglorious your past may have been, what your future is going to be is entirely up to you.
Myles Munroe was called a “stupid monkey” by his teacher in Elementary school. Because his grades were low, the same teacher told him he could never become anything significant in life. However, with the encouragement of a good mother who showed him from scriptures that as a child of God, he could achieve whatever he wanted to, he turned the table. With prayers and diligent study, within a few years after his teacher’s “prophecy”, he was already topping his class. Several years later, at a conference in the U.K where he was the main speaker, he had to autograph one of his books for the same teacher who stayed on the queue for a long time just to have audience with his former student whom he had written off! By this time, Myles had become an international figure whose messages on Leadership and Purpose had reverberated all over the world. The teacher had given his life to Christ by reading one of Myles’ numerous writings!
Abraham Lincoln was raised in a log cabin and literally home-schooled. He went ahead to defy several odds to become one of the greatest Presidents the United States of America has ever had. Thomas Edison was not a university graduate. He gave the world over a thousand patented inventions!
One of the greatest mistakes a man can make in life is to assume that he has all the time in the world. Time is one thing over which none of us has full control. You can only squeeze your achievements into the portion of that precious resource allocated to you.
Everybody on earth operates within the context of time. We have all been given 24 hours per day. Whenever God slips out of eternity and needs to do a work in time, even He is also limited to 24 hours per full day, 12 hours in the night and 12 hours in the day. Whatever you put into your own 24 hours, multiplied by the number of days in a year, multiplied by the number of years you live, will be the sum total of your life and history.
Jesus spent only thirty-three and half years on the face of the earth, but the impact of what He did in three and half years out of those short years, is still reverberating over two thousand years later. Martin Luther King Jr. was only 39 years old when he died. His dream of liberty and human rights for all irrespective of color of skin is still finding expression globally even now. He is the icon of every civil rights agitation worldwide! There is a holiday in his name in the United States of America. The legendary Reggae musician Bob Marley lived for only thirty-three years!… continued.
Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
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