Why you must never give up

THE street is not smiling. People’s hearts, in the words of scriptures, are failing them for fear. A few weeks ago, I wanted to print a book. The printer sent me a quotation, but he reminded me that the quotation was valid for only three days. About three weeks thereafter when I was ready to mobilize him, the price had jumped by about forty percent. These are the times that bring out the worst or the best in everyone who is going through it. Whenever you see people gather and start a discussion, it is usually around the lack, the insecurity and the pervasive spectres of hunger and hopelessness that seem to have enveloped the land. Unfortunately, because we are so absorbed in our own pain, we become inure to its pangs and so, are oblivious of the fact that conditions are sometimes worse in some of the other climes that we see as El Dorado. Having been used to a particular lifestyle or experience, we cannot even think of any alternative, talk less of negative, reality.

The frustration with the times and the attendant economic deprivation continue to weigh so much on many people’s emotions. For some, it is a business position gone south with plummeting resources. For others, it is disappointment from or loss of a loved one who was a backbone or support system. Consequently, many are battling with depression and talk of giving up. Many have contemplated suicide. A few have actually gone ahead to attempt or even commit it.

My message for you today is that to everyone who still has breath, there is hope. Hope is the veritable link between an undesirable present and a desired future. It is the eye through which champions see themselves when it appears that the odds are stacked up against them. To lose it is to lose life itself. You cannot afford to lose hope. As long as you have life, health and breath, failure is not final. While the suggestions of hopelessness continue to assail your mind, think about where you have been and how far God has brought you. If you can think deeply, you will jump up for gratitude for the multitude of blessings that you have which outnumber what you think you lack. You will see that you have more going for you than what seems to be working against you.

Let me give you a few reasons why you cannot give up or terminate your life. The first reason is that you were never created for yourself. Your experiences, positive or negative, constitute the tapestry of your life story and equipping so that you can better deliver the value in you to those for whom God meant it. Call it your preparation for effectiveness. Think about the businesses that are being incubated in you, but you are yet to start. Think about the books in you waiting to be written. The songs yet uncomposed. The places you dreamed of visiting. Think of the people whose blessings and prosperity are tied to something you must succeed in doing. Think of a generation that is waiting to chorus your victory song as the inspiration to believe in their own possibilities. Think of the special person who is waiting somewhere to call you “wife” or “husband; and the unborn children waiting to call you “Daddy” or “Mummy” as the case may be. Think of the millions of Naira locked up inside you waiting to be manifested when you can create the value that attracts significant rewards. Think of yourself as a Joseph, whose destiny, despite the slavery and prison experiences, was to feed an entire nation. Your potential is limitless. Stop turning the barrel of adversity’s gun on yourself. The attendant consequences don’t care if you were the one holding the trigger or not, if you pull – or should I say, “push” –  it.

Think about the many rich people around you whose lives you envy but who must constantly be on tranquilizers before they can sleep for about three hours in a 24-hour period. For you, all you need is to lie down somewhere, anywhere, and you will play all sorts of symphonies with your snoring and someone has to literally scream into your ears before you sluggishly get up!

Friend, your current level of frustration is someone else’s level of aspiration. As tough on you as you think things are, your present reality is someone’s prayer point and benchmark of progress. You now only eat one main meal per day and it’s tough because you were used to three. Someone not far from you hasn’t had anything to eat in three days! You owe the landlord arrears of rent. Be grateful that you even still have a roof over your head. Not everyone you see sleeping by the roadside or under a bridge has mental health issues! The only reason you can complain about not having shoes is because you even have feet to put them on!

Designed as a threshold for what it takes to stop you, pressure is meant to toughen you spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and sometimes, physically for the next level you desire to attain. Movement is the natural activator of opposition and the neutralizer of inertia!

Pressure is God’s oven for baking His champions. There is no cross without a crown. Pressure produced you. Your mother had to push hard before you could be born. But here you are today. Nobody can make omelettes without first breaking eggs. Defeat is a narrative that you allowed the environment to sell to you. Do yourself a favour. Return that toxic commodity to the seller. You don’t need it. If you by any chance know your Maker, He is not the author of failed projects in human form. You may have attempted several things that failed. That doesn’t make you a failure. What men call failure is nothing but a limitation of capacity or strategy. If you approach the same failed task with a more appropriate strategy, you will get a different result. A bend in the road must never be taken to mean the end of the road!Failure is not your person. It is merely a perspective. Your experience with failure is a school and whatever you lost in the process should be regarded as tuition you paid for learning and growing.

Failure becomes a problem when you refuse to learn the lessons inherent in the experience and use those lessons as the building blocks for future reinventing of yourself and your strategy.

You were not created or defeated. At copulation, the healthy male releases anywhere between one hundred to three hundred million sperm cells. Only one cell is needed to fertilize the female egg and produce a baby. Think about this. You contested with over one hundred million rivals at conception, and you neutralized them all. If as one cell you could stand up to more than one hundred million foes, what do you think you are capable of as a full-grown person? You won then; you can do it again.

You still want permission to give up?

NOT granted!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

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