Tag: Finding your source

It’s Not Over

When we are running our race, we have an idea of how things will go. SUre we will face obstacles and we will have disappointments, but most of us dream of not only clearing these hurdles but finishing the race with arms outstretched in triumph breaking the ribbon and crossing the finish line.

However, the reality is that some of us face a challenge so great that we pull up sharply in agonising pain and tumble to the ground, protrate. The shock of pain is so sharp, painful and sudden that we cannot catch our breaths much less get up to finish the race. We begin to think we have lost. “We have lost”, there is no way we can win, all the runners have gone way ahead and there is no way we can get past the pain much less to continue, catch them up and place.

Too many of us at this point decide to give up, “why bother, isn’t the aim to win?” “If I cannot win why bother”. So we still too long and think too much of the humiliation we face. We hear the whispers, “poor thing, so much potential, wasted”. Another nail in the coffin, why bother? The results will not match the potential, what was the point of it all?

Since the race has been lost why bother. Will I lay here and let the shame of my defeat wash over me?

Then there is the story of Derek Redmond. A story that leaves you in tears.

The first time I saw this video I cried and I am sure you will do the same: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZlXWp6vFdE)

But It’s not over. Should we run to win the race or to complete it? Which is greater? When others pass by, long gone, for one reason or another, giving up is not an option. What is the prize that we should aim for when we run our race? Is it that piece of paper that you get at graduation, that promotion, that house car, what is the prize that we should run for. If there is one thing that I realise it is that he did not continue to get a medal that chance had long gone, but still he continued to finish his race. All his life he was known as a winner and when winning mattered so much to so many, finish mattered more in the end for him.

For us too, many of us face hurdles that damage us so greatly that we feel like walking off the track instead of continuing. However, we have to continue we have to press on. I realise it is not how we start but how we finish our race. Mny remember Redmon’s race than they do the race of the person who won. Many persons have been inspired by his seeming defeat to continue at a time when they feel like giving up. It is true that our actions have a great impact on us and others who look on at what we do and say and from that we can inspire generations to come.

Though we may lose more than we win, we must run the race with the determination to finish, knowing that we will not finish alone.

Greatest Source

Everyone has their own basket to carry, their own story to tell…

On this blog you will finds posts about success and happiness. Many of us have and will read all there is to read on what makes someone a success. We want to succeed. We want to succeed because society tells us we have to and we then take the baton to carry out society’s will. Overtime, because we are busy looking for success, we forget what we need to be a success, we do not realise that the success we seek was never ours to receive. All along it was based on someone else’s dreams and someone else’s desire.

Many may spend all their lives trying to be a success and they never achieve it. Many may struggle at work, getting mediocre results, competing for a prize that is guaranteed to epitomize their success, but they never achieve it. They never achieve that prize, not because they are unworthy or lack talent but because their intentions were all wrong and the prize was never your to obtain.

We may have been conditioned to view success by how well others around us are doing. The person who has all the boxes ticked and has done everything by twenty, is the standard that the majority of us will not reach, but we still try to get there and then operate in uncertain defeat because we did not get there in time. However, there are a few among us who realise the trap of society’s success. Those who do not view success by how well they can operate within the box they have allowed themselves to remain in, but by understanding where their true success lie.

Success comes from God yet many of us do not seek that kind of success. We do not seek success outside of peer recognition and material wealth but instead, decide that if and when we achieve those things, God confirms our success. And yet, if we do get those things does it make us happy? If everything we do is motivated by a need for a reward, when we accumulate things unto ourselves are we winning?

True success comes from God…

True success comes from God. If we had to give up everything in this world that we see as important, would we still be content. If today no one sees us in a positive light because we turn out not to be what they expected, do we then become a failure?

Our worth should never be tied to what someone thinks of us but often times we allow ourselves to be commodified and in turn commodify others. For too many among us, how well we can sell ourselves will determine whether or not we achieve illustrious success. Again this is what we think. The reality is that for many commodification, conformity and self-gratification never yield the kinds of success they envision. They end up either heart broken or hardened by this reality. They are ever recognised, never given the credit that they think they deserve and never placed in the limelight for everyone to admire.

We need to do some reflection on what we truly want. Do we want to chase a success that we will never achieve or will have little pleasure in finally gaining. Or, are we faithfully enough to recognise that success comes from God and once we have placed the Almighty before us we will always be successful.

If we stop comparing ourselves to others, stop cross referencing timelines, if we stopped stretching ourselves into someone else’s lane, we will not be disqualified and fail to finish the race. Maybe it is that in order to find our individual and unique success, we need to draw away from our own understanding and the understanding of others and draw closer to the word and direction given to us by The Almighty.

In a season of uncertainty, chaos and loss, the only free and constant thing we have is the love of God. This constant source will help us to peel away the layers of ourselves, so that we can face who we are and not who we wish we were. It is also a source that will help us to embrace our limitations and flaws as we strife for a success not defined by man but that comes from The Great I Am.

Shallow Focus Photo of Glass Ball Near Body of Water