Picture this, your on your death bed, taking your last breadths before you leave this earth, and then you see something that looks like a ghost. You try to explain to the people around you what your seeing, but they don’t understand any of it and all they do is tell you to focus your eyes on them because they know your dying and they think your actually giving up the ghost. However, ideally you can’t because this ghost is actually talking to you, asking you questions that only you can hear. As you listen and look carefully, its not just one ghost but seven of them and each of them is talking to you, telling you what you would have done or become, “am the doctor that you were supposed to be, “am the invention that you were supposed to make,” “am the book you were supposed to write,” and that’s the time it hits you hard and you realize that you never attained your full maximum potential, you never fully attained your goals.
Les Brown said, “The graveyard is her richest place in earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream.” This statement is absolutely true! Most of the times majority of people are usually afraid to start something, simply because they are afraid to fail. Or maybe they tried once and failed and so they assumed that was the end of their career, their hope, faith and all the energy they had died!
Majority of successful people never succeeded at first attempt, but instead, they failed one too many times! The difference with them and the rest of the world, is that they didn’t stop at that, they pursued. Abraham Lincoln failed in business three times and failed at campaigning seven times prior to becoming President of the United States of America. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old. His parents thought he was “sub-normal” He was expelled from school and his teachers described him as ‘mentally slow,’ yet he went on to discover the theory of relativity. Michael Jordon was cut from his high school basketball team for a ‘lack of skill,’ yet he is now referred to as the greatest basketball player of all time. Bill gates was a Harvard University dropout and his first business, Traf-O-Data was a failure, yet millions of people all over the world use Microsoft every single day.
At 30 years Steve Jobs was left devastated and depressed after being unceremoniously removed from the company he started, Oprah Winfrey had a rough and abusive childhood and was fired from her job as a reporter because she was “unfit for TV,” yet she is the ‘Queen of talk show.’ Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for ‘lacking imagination’ and having ‘no original ideas,’ he left a legacy that lives until today. Henry Ford was a failure at three business before finally succeeding with Ford Motor company at age 53. Colonel Hardland David Sanders (KFC) couldn’t sell his chicken and 1,000 restaurants rejected him. Today millions of people all over the world eat KFC chicken. I could go on and on, the list of people who were termed as failures is way too big, however, they did not allow their failures to ‘determine’ their lives, instead they pursued until they succeeded.
What about you? what about me? Should we sit around and wallow in our sorrows just because business isn’t doing well? What else can you do? What are you good at? Could you be sitting on gold and not know? Could you be having the discovery the world is waiting to hear? Could you be sitting on a book that millions could get blessed by reading? Could you be having the secret to cancer or these incurable diseases? How will we know, until we have tried and failed?
The journey of a thousand miles, begins with a first step! Question is, will you let fear and failure hold you down? God has assured us of His support in Isaiah 41:10 “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Jesus warned us that we will have tribulation, that life wouldn’t be smooth sailing, however he gives us comfort in John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” What better assurance do we need? Jesus has overcome the world! Romans 8:37 Paul tells us, yet in all these things we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us.
What then should we do? Timothy puts it very clear in 2Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Fear is not from God, it is from the enemy. He uses fear to cause us into not pursuing our God given destiny, making us comfortable in our failures and so we simply stay in the state that we are in for the rest of our lives. What we need to do is to first search and discover our God given gifts and talents, then we need to nurture them and use them.
Let us not be like the man who was given one talent by his master and instead of investing in it, he hid it so that it doesn’t get lost. When His master came back and asked what he had done with his talent, he told him how he was afraid of loosing it, so he kept it safe until the time his master came back. Off course his master was annoyed with him and he took away his talent and gave it to the one who had five and had invested and doubled his share. Doesn’t this story sound like our daily lives? Afraid of trying, so we hide and keep our talents underneath, well the truth is, one day we will stand before God and He will ask what we did with everything that he impressed into our hearts, our gifts and talents, and we will have no where to hide!
Do you trust God? Do you believe in Him when He says that He has your back? Then take the bold step and start pursing your God given talents and gifts! you’d be shocked to see where God takes you! Allow the master of the universe to show you what He impressed into your heart, find your purpose in life and live it!
Failure is not an option! Success is your portion!
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