The Extra-Mile Pays

Yes it was not your job! You thought it was somebody-else job. You were too thoughtless to realize that nobody was doing what somebody could have done. What a failure mentality.

A famous CEO needed a deputy, he had three of his most competent staff on the shortlist but how was he going to make a final choice from the three? Each of them could do the job excellently and so he decided to put them to a test. He wrote an appointment letter, tied it up in a plastic bag with a stone in side then dropped it to the bottom of a bucket filled with some stale and extraordinarily stinking water.

He placed the bucket at a corner in the room in which his shortlisted staff worked and sent all the janitors on a holiday. That bucket was there for three days and none of the guys touched it. They knew something terribly smelled but did nothing. Let’s take a closer look at the three men.

James is that kind of a guy who thinks the world should bow down before him because he is indispensable in a prestigious company and exceptionally gifted. He does just what he is told and excellently – a quality that has saved him from trouble each time he steps on people’s toes.

Jude on the other hand, has the same traits with James except for not being too boastful. Even though his is a high performer, he is equally a dedicated clock-watcher. By the time the office clock announces the close of the day, Jude would already be at the door steps on his way home.

Paul on his part is equally very competent and much more, he always goes beyond himself to get those around him satisfied. Often he would walk up to the boss to ask if there was something more to do before retiring home. He had this special touch and the fact that he added a little icing on the cake made him to win the love of many admirers.

On the fifth day, the room had gotten really stuffy and unbearable. The bucket of stale waster still stood at the same position where the CEO left it. The three had been complaining, cursing but nobody took the pains to find out what was happening. Paul in his usual proactive manner went about that morning searching the room for what could be stinking while the others stayed aloof as usual. That’s how he came upon the bucket. He quickly took it aside, cleaned the already unbearable room and took the bucket outside. He threw the water and was about leaving when he noticed a plastic bundle.

Stopping over and covering his nose with one hand, he picked up what was going to make his day the best ever. He untied in and read the following message “… if you are reading this note, you have been promoted to the rank of deputy CEO of Athanasius Oil Investments. Meet the CEO for your new directives.”

This is the point, until you learn to do much more than you are paid to do, real achievements will keep on distancing themselves from you. Paul had developed the habit of doing much more than he was paid for and it paid him off. Not only did he become the boss to his two former mates, he was now winning and dining with the top brass of his company and the executive world at large.

His two colleagues combed the office for the next couple of months hunting for their own pot of gold but unfortunately for them, the rains had stopped and the rainbow was gone.

 Going the extra-mile as a habit always pays. Jesus Christ during his sermon on the mount encouraged this when He said as recorded in Matthew 5:41(NIV) “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”

Never Count On Luck!

Dear Loving People,

But then I told you that the word ‘Luck’ should not exist! In fact, I don’t have it in my dictionary and guess what, it’s so misleading that millions get trapped by it every blessed day. Luck suggests that there is some magic wand that can get things done for you with no effort of your and reinforces the already too bad concept of a ‘free lunch’.

The main question is, do things happen by luck? If they do, then one can speak of someone being lucky or unlucky. But if they do not happen by luck, then it is inappropriate to use those terms. Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 states, “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.” Much of what Ecclesiastes shares is from the perspective of a person who looks at life on earth without God, or life “under the sun.” From such a perspective—leaving God out of the picture—there seems to be good luck and bad luck.

In a capitalist world as the one we live in today, it’s so sad to note that some people think by some stroke of luck, they can make it. Some idle on doing nothing to improve upon their situations but hoping that by some luck, they will break into the upper circles of great achievements. I can assure you that it’s the nature of people who take no action in life to fail just like it’s the nature of ice to be cold.

While God can propel you from grace to grace, it will NEVER happen by luck. You have to demonstrate to God through meticulous thinking, planning, hard work and then prayers that you need to grow. Then God in his infinite love and mercy will after judging your motives propel you to that much desired status.

Thinking that luck will make you succeed one day is behaving like a man in a landlocked village who hopes to fly a bomber jet just because he sees such planes flying overhead while he goes hunting every morning.

A runner in a race may be the swiftest, but because someone in front of him stumbles, he trips over him and falls and does not win the race. How unlucky for him? Or a warrior king may have the strongest army but some “chance” arrow shot up into the air at random by a no-name enemy soldier just happens to pierce his armor in its most vulnerable location (2 Chronicles 18:33) resulting in that king’s death and the loss of the battle.

How unlucky for King Ahab? Was it a matter of luck? Reading the whole of 2 Chronicles 18, we find that God had His hand in the matter from the beginning. The soldier who shot the arrow was totally unaware of its trajectory, but God in His sovereignty knew all along it would mean the death of wicked King Ahab.

Again, imagine an inner voice tells you to leave your house and walk up to the road and you act upon it as instructed. While at the roadside, you are offered some amount of money as an unexpected present. Some people will rashly conclude that its luck. Now! Before you do that, remember you responded to the voice, you actually invested your time and energy to get to the road. Had it been you stayed put, you wouldn’t have been given the money. Is that luck?

What you get in life is proportional to the investment you make to get it.

Shape Your Destiny

 It’s DESTINY, It’s GOD’S PLAN! Well, are you saying that it’s God’s plan that you be such a derelict failure? Was it your destiny to become such a waste? OK I might just understand that when you sat at the road junction with idling friends each blessed day arguing about Eto’o Fils and his riches or who the current highest goal scorer is while your age mates toiled their way to success, it was God’s plan not so? I now can see exactly what you mean by God’s Plan.

Has it occurred to you that even God’s plan reposes on some platform called PERSONAL INITIATIVE? What you call Destiny or God’s Plan is a mammoth potential that God build into your system to govern you growth BUT- get me right! It’s not an automated system; it needs an ignition in order to create wonders. You are that ignition. Only you can turn on the ignition of your destiny.

You must have read or heard about an atomic bomb and how it can create unbelievable havoc. An atomic bomb is absolutely useless if nobody ignites it. It must be fired for it to destroy. In the same way you’re Destiny or God’s Plan will lie dormant until you personally take action for it to come true.

God is not a God of failure! God cannot be associated with failure and so God is incapable of making you a failure until you convince him that you have opted to be one. The Bible says in Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

People have allowed society to stratify them. We talk of upper class, lower class, poor, rich, privileged, underprivileged etc. Who has the power to decide the category where you belong? Certainly not Providence, God or Destiny as it’s often said but YOU! You alone can decide to belong where you want to be at any point in time. Those who give up so easily and opt to be losers, quickly blame the economy, the government, the environment etc. they see others within their communities moving on while they remain on the spot as professional complainers.

At one moment in my life, I gave up on looking for a job, my family and friends tried their best to advice but I closed my mind on them. I was suffering, in great poverty related pains but I kept on that way until the day it rang within me that I needed a change. I told myself it was time to get back on rails, I prayed hard even fasted and guess what? Some kind of telepathic emissions where sent out from that moment to all my loved ones. I had re-channeled my life and I would say God took over because shortly after that, a brother and friend called me to talk about a job opportunity somewhere and that’s how I got back to the world of happenings.

You have all it takes to shape your Destiny or God’s Plan for your life into what you want because the same God who made that Plan for you equally gave you the power to shape it. The Bible says in Psalm 139:13 (ESV) “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” God knows you too well to ignore you when you truly need help.

Take action today; shape your destiny into what you want it to be. You have the power to do that. “I know the Plans I have for you, plans to prosper you” declares the Lord.