Advancing Despite Adversities by Odinma Ifeanyichukwu - HTML preview

CHAPTER 20

#14.                               ASK WHY

This may come as a shock as most of us grew up with John Mason’s book, Why Ask why? Ask why. Those who fail to learn from history often repeat it. Find out the reason for the adversity and make the most of it. When purpose is not clear, abuse is clearly inevitable. Ask why. Know for sure exactly why you go through what you are going through. Many pray away their cross not knowing that it is the only route to their crown. The truth is: God will often open a shut door only when you understand why it was shut in the first place. In the Holy wreath, God wanted a prophet when His daughter Hannah needed a son. Until she understood this in the place of prayer and thus offered to provide the prophet (Sam 1:11), her womb remained shut. When her prayer moved from “Give me a son that Peninnahwon’t mock me again”; to “… I will give him back to you all his life”; God not only gave her Samuel, but also six more children as well (1 Sam 2:5).  Often, what we call adversity is God collecting the little seed we have in order to multiply it into the bountiful harvest we want.

          Ask why. Be certain about it. He who does not know when the rain began to beat him won’t know when it dries. Find out. God never allow things to happen save for our good. Jesus endured the cross because He knew why He must pass through it and was certain on its gain (Heb.12:2). Ask why. Rebecca almost died of misery over her mysterious pregnancy until she asked why. When she yelled: “Why am I like this?” She found the answer: “Two nations are in your womb!” Thus she moved from the mystery of her misery to the ministry of raising two nations for God.All great inventions and achievements began with one right question. Isaac Newton asked, “Why do things that go up never do stay up but come down?”  Few days later, Gravitational Theory was born. The Wright brothers asked, “Why can’t we just fly rather than flock the crowded road?” Months Later, the airplane was born. NnamdiAzikiwe, Awolowo, ErnestEnahoro and friends asked, “Why can’t we rule our own nation? Giant of Africa became an independent nation. When Obama asked whya black man never ruled America, he became US president. Ask why. When it occurred to GulonBluford that no black man has ever been to space; he asked why. Today he is the first African-American to go into space. Almost everyone was content with British rule in Kenya; until JomoKenyatta asked why. Kenyatta became Kenya’s founding father, first Prime Minister and first President of the Independent Kenya. Jimmy Dean once gave this inexplicable advice: “For true success, ask yourself these four questions: Why? Whynot? Why not me? Why not now?”

          Ask why. In my depressed and downtrodden state of MBBS exam failure aftermath, I asked, ‘why me?’ So passionate was I about serving God in the University chapel that I sacrificed all including my career. I looked up to God to work in my own vineyard as I worked assiduously in His vineyard. I did marathon fasting and reading while others only read. Everything, time strength and finances were laid at the altar of sacrificial service. So it happened, when I saw myself in that pit of shame, failure and disgrace, I asked why. I sought for encouragement but I found none. I looked both left and right, but all I could see were mockery faces that sank me deeper into an adverse emotional torture. Yet, despite the fact that encouragement eluded me, with share determination, I ensured that my spirit was equally void of discouragement. Nothing could be more confusing. Worst still, one Sunday morning, everyone looked up to me as the leader and preacher, for encouragement. Imagine. They sought from me the very same motivation my spirit actively lacked. Even the ones who understood my dilemma, looked on, eager to know what I would do. All night, I had asked God for a word but never heard a perky bird. Thus, seemingly stranded; as I stood there, transfixed, before a mammal crowd of mixed students and staff; my heart was heavy. Just when I was about to crack, to give up and give in to depression, His voice came loud and clear. He had never spoken so clear to me since I began my walk with Him. Without a prior preparation, rehearsal and appraisal, my mouth was opened, filled with His words: “When you see yourself in a pit, do not ask for a ladder (to climb out), rather, ask for a shovel. Every pit is a gold mine, if you can scoop out some few sands of delay, disappointments, and impatience, frustrations and depressions, you will hit your gold!” As I spoke that cold morning, my zeal, faith and joy were restored. I saw in my face the kind of joy and gladness that is phenomenal, beyond human comprehension. The congregation beamed with smile as their many unanswered questions received a most coherent answer. That was the best sermon that I ever preached there. No longer as it were- HolySpirit giving me a word for His people but the spirit speaking to my needs through His word for them. From that moment onwards, my mentality towards that disappointment completely changed. On getting home, while reminiscing His morning rhema during my private devotion, He drooped more. ‘I sent you there as a missionary not just to go and pass exams’. Then, I thought of all His wonders, plus His mighty hand of healing and deliverance in my life; I smiled! I laughed at my ignorance. It downed on me that in my five years in the medical school, I only wrote two exams – first and second MBBS. I passed one with distinctions, I failed the other. As I thought about all His miraculous deeds and my own heroics via His grace, I vowed never to regret again. From that moment thenceforth, I began to seek for the gold in the mine. First, a book was born, next a better medical school came calling and many hitherto unimaginable doors of opportunity were thrown open.

          Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning (Albert Einstein). I love the final prayer of Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) who prayed:“O my body, make me always a man who questions!” Be like Rudyard Kipling who wrote, in his children’s book, The Elephant’s Child:

I keep six honest men,

They taught me all I knew,

Their names are what and why and when

And How and Where and Who.

What caused my fall or failure? Is it pride or indecision? Is it a character flaw or wrong attitude in its entirety? What? Rebecca wept, “Why am I like this?” Why must I go through what am going through? He said He would be with me when I pass through the fire not that He would make the fire my permanent abode. Why me? Why not me? Charles Kettering once advised, “Once you have failed, analyze the problem and find out why, because each failure is one more step leading up to the cathedral of success”. Ask why.

          Until you ask, answers won’t come. Some common reasons why we face adversity could be highlighted under the acronym ADVERSITY.

A – Alone with God. God will do just anything to get the attention of His beloved. When Jacob was faced with the trauma of meeting Esau, he was left alone. The Bible says, that night, he had an encounter with God that changed his life and name forever.

D – Divine will of God. Most often, what we call adversity is simply God working out His plan for us. Divine presence often begins where man’s strength and influence ends.

V – Verification of your will to succeed. Fire is the test of gold, adversity is the test of mankind. He, who has the will to succeed, can endure just anything. Adversity proves you. It tests you. It confirms your will to succeed.

E – Extracts the best in you. Nothing brings out the best in us like adversity. Nothing advances like adversity.

R – Removes Pride and trust in self from you. Adversity comes to murder pride. It makes one to humbly trust God as the architect of all accomplishments.

S – Strengthens your resolve to succeed. When adversity strikes, one brings to remembrance why one has always wanted that particular thing in the first place. Adversity exposes your priority and strengthens your decision to accomplish a thing. It also develops in you both endurance and stamina.

I – It introduces you to you. How true. Adversity reveals to all what one is truly made of. When a tube of paste is squeezed, its content is let out. When a glass cup is shaken, its content spills. What comes out of a man at the times of adversity shows whom he really is.

T – Trains you to manage and maintain upcoming success. The Israelites spent 40 years preparing for a life in the promise land. A success you storm into may kill you without proper training. The school of Hard knocks is said to produce the best of scholars. Guess whom the teacher is? Adversity!

Y – You are being prepared for a bigger test. It is like an immunization vaccine. It inoculates you before hand as a preparation to succeed when a more severe test comes.

Other common reasons for adversity include:

Adversity brings out the best in you. You can never know how much you can endure until you plunge into adversity.

Adversity advertises your grace for perseverance to the world. It reveals to all your ability to take risk and how bold enough you are to go beyond what you know into what you don’t know.

Adversity brings to you the opportunity to take risk and discover new talents. It was my leaving medicine that drove me into mastering Geology, Law and Engineering.

Adversity and failures would help you establish mastery. The more time you spend learning a trade, the more you master that trade. Most of the famous surgeons and legal icons I know are those who spent more than enough time studying before they began practice. Adversity builds your will power, persistence, self-discipline and the virtue of hard work.

Even the most painful adversity is of great benefit. Just like a pain sensation, adversity: Gives one a warning signal about the existence of a problem or threat one never knew was there. It may be a character flaw or bad habit you never knew exist or is fatal. Adversity like pain will make you aware of an injury – moral or otherwise, which if unattended to will become a cancer that will wreck your life completely.

Again just like pain, adversity will help you prevent further damage by causing a reflex withdrawal of the body, this time your destiny, from the source of injury.

It also forces one to rest or to minimize activities thus enabling the rapid healing of the injured part.       

CHAPTER 21

#15.            BEGIN AGAIN

                   Having done all and known why, start up again. Defy those bumps; pick up the pieces and move on. The game is not over until you win. The journey is not over until you reach your goal. Failure is only a road you cross enroute success, not your final destination. Count every trial as an act of courage. Begin again. The various jobs you lost appears on your CV as job experience.  Don’t let that failure announce your end, try again. All great men are bundle of beginners. The only thing to cry when all else fails is “Begin Again”. Buddha said, “No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again”. Start afresh. Every failed adventure is an opportunity to make a fresh start. Every fresh start is an opportunity to do better than you did the last time. All great achievers are men who were neither afraid nor ashamed to re begin from the scratch. Dare to bounce back. The earlier, the better. Ask boxers: the longer you stay down the harder it is to rise again. He who fights and runs away will live the rest of his life in shame and regrets. It is not about what happened to you. That adversity is only a test of nature to know what you would do. Don’t disappoint. Do exactly what you would love your son to do if he finds himself in your present shoe- you may pass it on.

          Asked his yard stick for success, George Patton (185 - 1945), a Legendary American army officer, said, “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits the bottom”. According to Dale Carnegie, “A successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way”. Tony Alfonso told his fans, “When you miss a shot, never think of what you did wrong. Take the next shot thinking of what you must do right” Micheal Jordan is believed to be the greatest player in basketball history. Hear what he gave as his life philosophy, “I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying again”. He later told his fans; ‘I have failed over and ova again – that is why I succeeded’. Hear Nelson Mandela: “The greatest glory in living liesnot in never failing, but in rising every time we fall”. Paul Harvey, a US journalist and author, wrote in his book, “Someday, I hope to enjoy enough of what the world calls success so that someone will ask me, “What is the secret of it? I shall say simply this: ‘I get up when I fall down”. There is indeed no better exercise than rising and falling. Nothing builds a man so fast and so well like the diet of success with failure sandwiched in between. “Our greatest glory,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “is not in never failing but in rising up every time we fail” Always remember, the call is higher than the fall. Get back up when you get knocked down.

          Start small if need be.For according to Henry David Thoreau, “It matters not how small the beginning may seem to be. What is once well done is well done forever”.  The Wright brothers, Orville Wright (1871 - 1948) and Wilbur Wright (1867 - 1912) in 1892 formed the Wright Cycle Company and for ten years, they designed, built and sold bicycles. The glamorous American movie star actor Brad Pitt (1963) once had a summer job, posting warning signs at coal mine entrances. The Shawnee, Oklahoma born actor, grew up in spring field Missouri. He studied in the University of Missouri but in 1986 was forced to leave the college without a degree – just two credits shy of graduating with an advertising degree. After 5years of merry-go-rounding the movie world, he became a star. What of Demi Moore? The man who today earns up to $20million per movie first found work as a bill collector. Legendary Elvis Priestly was a truck driver. Julia Morgan (1872 - 1957) advised her fans, “Never turn down a job because you think it is too small, you don’t know where it can lead”. A group of three men, George Washington, Robert Morris and Col. George Ross in 1776 walked up to a busy middle class widow with a bizarre job cum assignment. She was asked to sow together pieces of white stars and red stripes that would later become her country’s flag. She gave it her all. Thus Betsy Ross, a poor country-side seamstress, made the very first American flag. Besty Ross, who married and out lived three different husbands, had showed an aptitude for fine needlework from an early age. She was born Elizabeth Griscom on January 1, 1752 in Philadelphia. Today, her home in Philadelphia is preserved as the birth place of the American flag.

          Begin where you are with all you have. Whatever you have left will reproduce all you have lost- with much interest. Remember the Shunamite woman. Her little pot of oil made her a great merchant. As HamiltonMabie once said, “The question for each man to settle is not what he would do if he had the means, time, influence and education advantages, but what he will do with the things he have now”. Don’t be like the German Billionaire who committed suicide after losing 1/3 of his wealth during the recent world economic meltdown. Teddy Roosevelt advised, “Do what you can, with what you have where you are.” Always remember Henri Arnie where he said, “Almost everything comes from almost nothing.” As Christ gathered twelve baskets of the broken pieces of fish and bread, tactfully gather all that remains of your talents and grace; then begin again from there. Epicurus wrote, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for”. Just begin. What you have left will reproduce all you have lost and much more. Nothing is too small nor a position too low. A mountaineer who gets to the peak of Everest began climbing from the foot of the mountain. By the time James Cash Penney died on February 12, 1971, aged 95, his retail company, J.C Penney Company was the fifth largest retail firm in the United States, with 1660 stores and annual sales of $4.1billion. However James Cash Penney began business as a stock room worker. After his first retail store business- a butcher shop in Longmont, Colorado, failed, life seemed to hold no promise at all for young Penney. That was 1890. However, Penney gathered all that he had left, moved to Kemmerer, Wyoming where he opened his first Golden Rule dry goods store that turned out to be an immediate success. Today, the rest is history.

          Your beginning may be small, but always remember that the mighty oak tree began as tiny mustard seed. Robert Lee Frost rose to become one of the greatest poets of his time. However, in 1902 the poetry editor of Atlantic monthly returned his poem with a note that reads. “Our magazine has no room for your vigorous verse”-what a way to begin! Winston Churchill did not start greatly either. At boyhood, he was known to all, in the words of his teacher, as “a conspicuous lack of success”. We all remember Napoleon Bonaparte as one of the greatest military generals of all time. However, Napoleon graduated 42^nd in a class of 58 at military school in Lucaire. Prof. Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate, left school with a third class! Bildad the Shuhite reminded Job (8:7), “Though thy beginning may be small, yet your latter end would greatly increase.” The truth is: Everything great began with something small. One who is not willing to start small never starts at all. All great harvests began as a small seed sown. What Elijah’s servant down played as, “Just a tiny cloud”; produced a mighty downpour.

Be like Douglass Mac Arthur (1880 - 1964). When the brave soldier, famous for his retirement speech (old soldier never dies...), was leaving Corregidor Island having lost the Philippines to the advancing Japanese forces in WWII, he assured the then world, “I shall return”. He did. America didn’t only reclaim the Philippines but also defeated Japan and helped crush the Nazi forces; thus ending the war.   Joseph Sugarman made this powerful observation, “Not many people are willing to give failure a second opportunity. They fail once and it is all over. The bitter pill of failure is often more than most people can handle. If you are willing to accept failure and learn from it, if you are willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you have got the essential of harnessing one of the most powerful success forces”

          Begin again. Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do. (Pope John XXIII). Success is ever possible for the man who keeps trying. Starting all over gives you the opportunity to rise again with a better firmer foundation. Conquer that discouragement. Load your gun again and start shooting. Dican rightly observed, “Learning how to stand up is easy, learning how to stand up after you have fallen down, that is tough.” It shouldn’t be. Don’t let that failure keep you down. The key to success is to keep getting up or, at least, to get up one more time than you fall down. Vince Lombardi told his players, “It is not whether youget knocked down; it is whether you get up that count”. A famous poet wrote these lines:

          But what if I fail of my purpose here?

          It is but to keep the nerves at strain,

          To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,

          And, baffled, get up and begin again.

          The truth is, in life being knocked down by adversity is not always an option; it can happen to anybody; but staying down is. Life is full of choices but often, the choice of sudden failure is not ours to make. A child dies suddenly. A business premise or company is razed down by fire. A boss, trying to cut down the number of staff under him, decides to fire you. Accidents happen! However, the choice to stay down or to get up is always ours to make. You decide either to surrender to the feeling of being powerless over the situation and by getting frustrated, deepen the rut. However you can as well decide to think and act yourself out of the situation.  Tough times and things announce tough people. Toughness is not genetic; we train ourselves for it.

                    The good news is, you still retain the inherent ability to rise again no matter how long you have been down. Always remember, you don’t have to get it right always, you only need to get it going always.

CHAPTER 22

#16.                               MAY GOD GIVE US MAD MEN

        Finally, all said and done, develop a strong passion and an unswerving determination to reach your goal. Rebuild your passion. Refuse to be robbed of your God given dream. Watch out for fresh new open doors of opportunity. Develop a strong emotional attachment to your dreams. Imbibe the spirit that won’t let go. Keep yourself excited and hopeful no matter what you have been through. Turn your dream to a desperate desire. As Napoleon would say “Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire, which transcends everything”. Always remember the admonitions of Abraham Lincoln who said: “You can have anything you want, if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose”. Yes you can still make it. No dream is too big to be actualized. Maybe it is difficult, but for sure it isn’t impossible.Impossible is nothing. As Napoleon Bonaparte will put it: “Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools”. It only seems impossible because you have not tried enough. Be like the USA army corps of engineers who always say: “The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer”. 

          Get mad about it. Get so mad that no amount of failure and adversity can stop your desire. There is this true life story about the irrefutable prayer of one of Africa’s great legends and warlord, Gen. OdumegwuOjukwu. It happened that men of God gathered in a prayer quake conference. Gen. Ojukwu happened to be a special guest of honor at the occasion. At the tail end of the programme, the organizers of the conference decided to honor Gen. Ojukwu’s presence by having him lead in the closing prayers. People chorused ‘amen’ after every of his sentence. After speaking of courage, determination and perseverance, Ojukwu rounded off the prayer by shouting in a loud voice, “May God give us mad men in the name of Jesus!” At this juncture, even the organizers of the programme where too scared to say ‘Amen’.

          Mad men! Insanity often comes to mind of many whenever that word is mentioned. Yet, there is lot more to that word than that reach the ordinary eye. A mad man is one who is so enthusiastic about a thing that he is very ready to die for that course. Ojukwu was willing to die for Biafra. Rev Martin Luther King Jnr. died for the emancipation of blacks in America and Nelson Mandela ‘happily’ graced the four walls of the prison yard for 27years in his bid to erase the foot prints of apartheid from his dear nation. Until you get so mad about a thing that you are willing to stake your last breathe to it, true success that inspires many won’t come. It was Rev. Martin Luther King who first said: “He who has not discovered what he can die for is not fit to live.Martin was so mad about his mission that one day in 1962 after shots were fired into  nearby negro houses near his church in Albany, Dr King said: ‘It may get me crucified. I may even die. But I want it said even if I die in the struggle that he died to make men free!” A mad man is always frenzied and frantic about what he believes. He pursues what he is mad about with great intensity and energy. He neve