WHOM DO YOU REPRESENT?

"I want to thank GOD for everything he has done for me cause without him none of this wouldn't be possible." - Usain Bolt

The Jamaican Usain Bolt, is the fastest man on the planet: he is the first to hold the 100 and 200 meters world records. He won six Olympic gold medals in two Olympic games, in sprinting. Bolt is also an eight-time world champion and a a devout Christian. He characteristically mouths a prayer to his creator, before every race, and after each victory he publicly gives thanks to Jesus Christ. He's not ashamed to do so. Following his second gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics, where his time in the 200m was 19.32 seconds, just a few hundredths of a second outside the current Olympic record, Usain added: "I want to thank GOD for everything he has done for me cause without him none of this wouldn't be possible."

SINFUL DESIRE

"Every temptation that we meet in the path of duty is another chance of filling our souls with the power of heaven." - Frederick Temple 

 

Dan Delzell, Pastor of Wellspring Lutheran Church in Papillion, Nebraska wrote, '7 Things You Should Know About Temptation.' It appeared in the Christian Post in June 2014. In the article he said, "If you think you already know all there is to know about temptation, think again." Temptation is a visitor, that comes knocking on the door of our heart daily. It never gets tired.

With temptation, 'what you see isn't what you get.' The power of temptation lies in the desire to have what is being offered; one of its many deceptions is that it doesn't really deliver the promised goods: even if it does, it hides from you the pain that comes with it; it offers one thing, but delivers another. What you see isn't what you get. Instead, you end up getting all the baggage that comes with the decision to give into temptation. The pressure to resist

DON'T WAIT FOR IT TO START II

"Work like you don't need money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like no one is watching." - Randall G. Leighton 

Life is not about to start, it will not start. Don't wait for it to start...it started before you started waiting. You must have heard, 'I'm just killing time.' In reality, time is actually killing you. Myles Munroe said, we become what we buy with our time: because time is currency, you become what you exchange it for. So, stop waiting…start living. Don't wait for 'perfect' situations before you make that move, or take that decision, because situations will NEVER be perfect. Choose to be happy, no matter what.

Even in a painful situation, look objectively and you will see many things - in that situation - to be happy about. Happiness is not a destination, it's a journey...consciously decide that there is no better time, than right now, to be happy. You slipped and lost a tooth? Laugh about the wide gap in your mouth when you smile now. There's always something hilarious and good, about a bad situation. ALWAYS. Just look.

NIGHT OF FAVOUR

UNHOLY DESIRES

"God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full--there's nowhere for him to put it." - Augustine

 

Greed

In 2005, a Pakistani high school science teacher Syed Sibtul Hassan Shah went to Dubai. When he returned to his hometown, he convinced his neighbours to give him their savings, which he doubled in seven days, based on a stock program he'd learned in Dubai. Word spread of the "Double Shah." People began investing with him; in eighteen months, he took in $880 Million from 3,000 people and was considered the next political leader from the area. When police arrested Shah on charges of robbery in 2007, thousands of people descended to the streets to protest against his arrest. In January 2012, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison after he pleaded guilty.

Greed is the obsession with accumulating material goods. A greedy person values these goods more than anything else - our greed can never be satisfied. Greed and slothfulness have similarities - the greedy and slothful both crave material goods, with no desire to work for it. The slothful will not work even for basic necessities. The greedy will use deception to acquire stuff, will lie or use false pretenses to acquire things. At the expense of others.

DON'T WAIT FOR IT TO START

"Work like you don’t need money, love like you’ve never been hurt and dance like no one is watching." - Randall G. Leighton 

Happy

Sometimes we convince ourselves that life will begin after we: get the job, get married, have a baby, and then another contract. Just then we become frustrated that the children aren’t old enough and we’ll be more content when they are. After that, we’re frustrated and we assume we will certainly be happy when they are adults. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when we get a nice car, or are able to go on a nice vacation. The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now.

Alfred D. Souse hinted, "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid.

A BROKEN STRING II: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain

Itzhak Perlman

Every music maestro knows it is impossible to play a symphony with just three strings. Itzhak Perlman refused to know so. You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. Then everyone rose in an extraordinary outburst of applause, from every corner of the auditorium. People on their feet, screaming and cheering. Perlman smiled, raised his bow to quieten them, and in all modesty said, "You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."

What do you have left, from the rubble of life? Have you lost a string, or more? Itzhak Perlman made music with three strings: the outcome was awesome. God will always leave you with something to play with. Don't allow your knowledge, or belief limit you.

A BROKEN STRING

"There are people who are uncanny, who are finished products at a young age. I wasn't, thank God." every finished product today, was once unfinished." - Itzhak Perlman 

Disappointments occur many times in life, unannounced. That's why they're called 'dis-appointments'. What do you do when they happen?

On November 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, walks painfully to reach his chair. He sits down and slowly drops his crutches, un-straps his braces. He picks his violin: the audience is waiting for him to play. But as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings broke on his violin. You could hear it snap - what a disaster? There was only two options. He was either to find another violin or find another string, Itzhak didn’t do any. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. Perlman played with such passion, power and dexterity, such as this audience had never heard before. It is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. Everyone knows so...but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.

Don't quit...just do it. Sometimes, it takes a painful disappointment to teach us a skill. What do you do when your string breaks

CONFUSED?

"If God asks you to jump, while hanging on a cliff trust Him and jump. He will either catch you, or give you wings to fly." - Unknown 

Confused?

It is amazing, and mind bogging in our walk with God, the kind of things He asks us to do. Asking us to doing these things most times isn't the issue, but the timing to do them. To the natural, carnal mind it's unacceptable; but for the spiritually discerning, obedience isn't an option. Take for instance, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his ONLY son Isaac. As if that wasn't enough, He gets Mary pregnant and asks Joseph not to put her away. Do these things make sense?

Following God, isn't rocket science. He is such an interesting being that, in your debt, He talks to you about wealth. In your timidity He calls you a mighty man of valour. In your hunger he tells you you'll lend to nations and not borrow. It's amazing. However, the problem with us is that, we see WHERE we are, but God sees WHAT we are. I'll explain. A BMW 6 series held up in traffic, is a car regardless of it's position.

YOUR BEAR THE BRUNT

"He who plays with fire gets burnt." - Unknown

Many people find it almost unacceptable that the same God whom is called, Merciful will allow people, disobedient people, to be punished for their atrocities, waywardness and rebellion. Some argue that it is not right to punish anyone in hell, for eternity. As a matter of fact, most believe He's non-existent, their argument. "Why does evil abound?" We forget that, God is a principled father. He's a stickler for rules, and reward systems. "if you do this, you get that. If you don't do this you don't get that." He's the originator of conditional statements.

Even though he is a merciful God, He doesn't exonerate us from our misbehaviour, even though He can shorten the consequences sometimes. He will not always take the consequences of our foolish decisions, or relationships away. David and Bathsheba for example had an adulterous affair, and even had her husband killed. The consequences were dire.

THE HESITANT BRIDE

"A broken relationship, is better than a broken marriage." - Unknown

Someone, had an uncomfortably unpleasant experience at a recent wedding ceremony. Everything seemed to be going as planned until that time, where the minister asked the all-important question of the bride, "Do you take so-and-so to be your lawfully wedded husband?" Just then, for some unknown reason, there was an incredibly long and unbelievably awkward silence. No one, at the time, knew for sure what was going on in the bride's head: was she absent minded, or was she actually contemplating how she wanted to answer. Not being a close friend, this witness didn't get to find out the cause for this bride's delay.

What a nerve wrecking experience that would've been for everyone at the wedding: to families of the couple, but especially to the groom. The scenario might appear like a scene from a Hollywood movie, but it's not. Someone said, "a broken relationship is better than a broken marriage." What if we consider our decisions, and

DIAMOND IN THE DIRT II

"A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

This is a true story. This lady, as a child, almost lost her parents in a divorce. Nine years later, she was married but lost her husband to death's icy fingers, leaving her with four little children to raise. A couple years later, her mother passed on. After her mother died, she remarried but went through trials with her in-laws. Not long after, her father, brother, and brother-in-law died of cancer. As if that was not enough pain already, she experienced the death of her child to illness. And currently, she also has another sick child. Both her and her husband have been fired on their jobs, twice.

Charles Spurgeon said, "Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of." trials are inevitable in life, God allows it to come your way to build you. With trials, you become wiser. You learn more about yourself and the people surrounding you. Yes, sometimes your trials might seem too much. Yet, know that, God is in it with you.

DIAMOND IN THE DIRT

"Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with." - Thomas Carlyle

Diamond

Bobbie Oskarson of Longmont, Colorado, found an 8.52 - Carat White diamond on Wednesday (June 24) at the Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park. According to park officials this is the fifth largest diamond found by a park visitor, since the state park was established at Arkansas’s diamond site in 1972. Twenty minutes into her search, Bobbie found the diamond in a couple scoops she had dug from a small mound of dirt.

Confucius said, "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without." How mind shattering is it, that an 8.52 carat diamond, was laying just there, below the surface of dirt, junk, sand, mud: free for the taking! I'm talking about a DIAMOND here. Why would something of value be hid, in something of absolutely no value - dirt. Something we actually spit and trample on, without any iota of respect or regard.

WHEN YOU'RE TIRED OF PRAYING

"Prayer is a strong wall and fortress of the church; it is a goodly Christian weapon." - Martin Luther 

This young lady had a somewhat 'close' relationship, with pain and grief. Why do I say so? Read a bit of her life's experiences. She has a unique grief story. As a child, her father was hit by a drunk driver, he died instantly. She also lost all her grandparents, two of her uncles and an aunt. She has experienced the deaths of two fiancés. Two. One of her fiancés died just one month before her sister suddenly died. To add salt to the injury, she was also wrongly fired: laid off from work. Before you get all moody, hear what she says in the midst of all these, "The treasures I've learned through loss are not something I can go out and buy at the Supermarket!"

How do you handle grief? In life, God is not the cause of your grief or painful experiences, even though He allows it, sometimes. Just know that every allowed pain, by God, in your life is not to destroy you...but to build you. Learn to trust and praise God through your storms.

YOUR SERVICE, YOUR WORSHIP

"Faithful servants never retire. You can retire from your career, but you will never retire from serving God." - Rick Warren 

Service

To fully grasp the meaning of Rick Warren's statement above, you'll need to change your goggles. William Arthur Ward once said, "The more generous we are, the more joyous we become. The more cooperative we are, the more valuable we become. The more enthusiastic we are, the more productive we become. The more serving we are, the more prosperous we become." There is a wrong notion about service, and how or why it is done today.

Prosperity, or success as defined by the world is very different from How God, our creator, sees it. Prosperity and success to Him, is growing in what He's assigned you, and using what He's given you to glorify Him. We do not have to wait to become a worship leader in the choir to worship God. We can do so everyday, all day, every time we go to work, school, or even the market.

YOU'RE NOT A COPY III

"Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities." - Criss Jami

Often declared, "worlds best footballer," Christiano Ronaldo became the world's most expensive player, when he moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid in 2009: a transfer worth £80 million ($132 million). In May 2012, he become the first footballer to score against every team in a single season in La Liga. Ronaldo was expelled from school, after he threw a chair at his teacher. Speaking about the incident he said, "He disrespected me." Ronaldo agreed with his mother, when he was fourteen, to focus solely on football.

It will interest you to know, that Ronaldo is the first Portuguese player to reach 50 international goals, making him Portugal's top goal scorer of all time. And in December 2014, Ronaldo became the fastest player to score 200 goals in La Liga when, in his 178th La Liga

YOU'RE NOT A COPY II

"Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it." - Bruce Lee 

Looking at many spheres of influence, or careers as many call it. Certain names stand out, in your mind. For instance, when you talk about operating systems, Bill Gate's Windows comes to mind. In football, great names pop up, but that list won't be complete, without mentioning that little wonder-man, Lionel Messi. Why? I'll tell you.

At the age of five, Messi started playing football for Grandoli, a local club coached by his father Jorge. Today he's often considered the world's best player, and rated by some as the greatest of all time. Messi is the first football player in history to win four FIFA/Ballons d'Or, all of which he won consecutively. He's the first to win three European Golden boot awards. He is the only player to top-score in four consecutive Champions League seasons, and also the first to hold a record for the most hat-tricks

YOU'RE NOT A COPY

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation." - Herman Melville

Michael Fred Phelps II, is the most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 22 medals. Phelps also holds the all-time records for Olympic gold medals. In winning eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, Phelps took the record for the most first-place finishes at any single Olympic Games. In the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Phelps won four golds and two silver medals, making him the most successful athlete of the Games for the third Olympics in a row. What an introduction.

C. S. Lewis said, "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." Just reading Phelps introduction feels so dramatically astounding. What a swimmer he is.

LITTLE BEGINNINGS II

"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." - Lao Tzu

Every great ventures today, had once started out little somewhere. Some multiplied dollar businesses have come from more humble beginnings than others. Some launching out with just some basic equipment, a couple of staff, when there was no funds for space some had to start out from a garage space. In all, it was the idea that made the difference.

In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft, with just a few resources and an available garage space. Microsoft homed in on the software market. Working with IBM, the company that licensed their first OS for a mere $80,000. Later, they would go on to develop more sophisticated operating systems that would evolve into those we know as Windows today.

LITTLE BEGINNINGS

"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." - Lao Tzu

Start

Jason Calacanis says, "You have to have a big vision and take very small steps to get there. You have to be humble as you execute but visionary and gigantic in terms of your aspiration. In the Internet industry, it's not about grand innovation, it's about a lot of little innovations: every day, every week, every month, making something a little bit better." And Sarah Ban Breathnach, added "Begin today..."

You are not insignificant. God made you, a masterpiece. Regardless, how your life is at the moment, it can change for the best. Great things start small. The only thing that starts from the top is the graveyard. The irony is, it ends six feet below: at the bottom. MacDonald's, Coca cola, Microsoft, Ford, Sony. You name it. All began small. Is it a relationship? Whatever it is. Begin today and keep at it.

THINK YOURSELF A FAILURE? VIII

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln once said, "Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm." He is one of the greatest leaders that ever lived, his life wasn’t as easy. In his youth, he went to war a captain and returned a private: a private is as low as it goes. His stint at failing didn't stop there. He pioneered many failed businesses, and was defeated in countless runs for public office. You can't talk about failing, without mentioning Lincoln. What about, Van Gogh? During his time, he sold only one painting: to a friend and only for a very small amount of money. While he wasn't a success during his life, Van Gogh trudged on, painting. Sometimes starving to complete his over 800 known works.

Lincoln made a striking statement, "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Your dreams can only be destroyed by you - from within. Do you think yourself a failure?

THINK YOURSELF A FAILURE? VII

"Faith is not faith, until it is the only thing you're holding onto." - Unknown

 If you conducted a poll regarding success, over fifty percent of respondents will tell you great, lofty wants. Success appeals to everyone, no matter colour, race or geography: it's a universal language. Most people 'want' to succeed, others 'admire' success and yet others 'desire' it. The degree of desire for anything is, what determines whether one will, or will not get it.

The Wright brothers, brothers battled depression and illness before starting the bicycle shop, that led them to experimenting with flying machines. After numerous failed attempts at creating flying machines, years of continuous work, and tons of faulty prototypes, and discouragement from their father, they finally created a machine that could get airborne and stay there. Churchill struggled in school and failed the sixth grade. After school he faced many years of political

THINK YOURSELF A FAILURE? VI

"Faith is not faith, until it is the only thing you're holding onto." - Unknown

Many times, we see seemingly successful people, and most of us wrongly believe they're different than them. Some think, 'I can't be that successful.' They look for excuses why they can't succeed in life. Why? For reasons ranging from background to turbulent life issues.

The billion-dollar business, Honda, began with a series of failures and fortunate turns of events, due to persistence. Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation for a job, after interviewing him for an engineer position. This left him jobless for a long time. He started making scooters of his own at home, spurred on by his neighbours, he finally started his own business. What about, Akio Morita, the founder of Sony Corporation? His name might not ring any bell, but his company Sony sure does. Sony’s first product was a rice cooker that unfortunately didn’t cook rice but burn it. He sold less than 100 units of that rice cooker. This first setback didn't stop Morita, he and his partners pushed forward to create a multi-billion dollar company.

THINK YOURSELF A FAILURE? V

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas A. Edison.

Here's a little rundown, of people you must have heard of. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven. Isaac Newton never did well in school. Thomas Edison's teachers told him he was "too stupid to learn anything."

Walt Disney, business man and founder of the, Walt Disney Company, which today, rakes in billions from merchandise, movies and theme parks around the world. You must have seen that Walt Disney, himself had a bit of a rough start. He was fired by a newspaper editor because, "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn't last long, and ended with bankruptcy and failure. He kept pressing on, however, and eventually found a recipe for success that worked. I'm sure, Disney isn't a hard name to remember if you've ever seen a movie.