CHAPTER 57
PERFECT FOR YOUR PURPOSE
Some years ago, I had developed depression thinking how best I was going to fit into society. I grew up with issues and especially my slow growth, which waned my self-esteem, and self believe.
I might have been very talented and with huge mental capacity, but I failed to discover myself coupled with the fact that the words I heard around me were discouraging enough to have me think any way better. I never felt good enough even when I knew my peers were not better either until I discovered I was made with perfection for a purpose. I had struggled with my imperfections until I decided that I would quit fighting them and decide to seize on the difference it gives me and be a blessing to my world.
Over the past few years discovering my purpose, I have interacted with many minds who were suffering the way I had once suffered. When I tell them, just the way they are is perfect, it seems like I am telling them some odd truth.
While growing up as kids, we often had names for those who were extremely big which we termed “biggy or fatty” and those who were extremely thin which we termed “kpanla”. They were not nice names for the bearers especially as they would often stand out for criticism from peers, friends, family and acquaintances. Every one desired to look nice but not every did look nice. Some of us were horrible and if the horribleness was an extreme case, that person would be compared to say a monkey. It was hurting but one could not help it.
I went back to work after getting through my depressed condition and observed after studying enough books that God makes more than enough provision to cover for our perceived imperfections. To God, we have being made perfect. Those things we seem less gifted or incapacitated in, he makes even greater provisions to outweigh the inadequacies that our seemingly imperfection may provide us with.
Reading through Nick Vudicic’s book(the man born without hands and legs save a little limb), I was baffled at how God’s perfection still glows in the face of what I would describe as an impossible imperfection. I call it impossible because it would take an uncommon creative work of God to produce hands and legs for Vudicic yet Vudicic turned that weakness by the grace of God to create a ministry that has spanned the world, a task those of us with hands and legs have failed to achieve.
When God chooses to achieve his purpose, he is not looking for a conforming you. He will not try to make you like the Jonesses. He has molded you perfect to achieve his purpose provided he has chosen you for that purpose.
If your head’s bald, that’s great for your purpose. If you’ve got talking disorders, that’s awesome for your purpose. If you are oversize, that’s how you have to be to fulfill your purpose. If you are as thin as a needle, no one’s better for your purpose. If you’ve got reading disorders, it’s a necessity for you to fulfill your purpose. The way you are, is the best you should be to achieve your purpose.
Some persons question God on why they were made the way they are. They query him over the reason why they were not born like Mr. A or Miss B. They have seen good attributes in the persons they admire who have accepted their individuality and have succeeded turning their negatives into testimonies. If you have been thinking this way, you really need to do a rethink. Those ones you admire and wish to be like have their frailties too. They only seem to soar because they have come to understand how helpless they are trying to fight those frailties and then they discovered how to apply them for their good.
However way you are, your purpose has been written down before you jumped into earth. Surprisingly too, you have been molded and etched to suit that purpose. Rather than ponder on how you are, go discover your purpose and push for its fulfillment.
Only you can get your purpose achieved. The faster, you get at it, the sooner you achieve it.
Remember, you are perfect for your purpose.
THE PRISON BREAK
You will be odd praying to find yourself in the courtyards behind a tall fenced prison wall. It will be dreams paused been found there.
When we watch movies starring prisons, especially those in the United States, we observe the orderly state of the prisons, very comfortable homes for criminals. What we see is very different from those in Africa. You would hear kids say, “If you are placed in an American prison, it’s all fun. Prisoners are very comfortable there.” It’s thought that criminals in the penitentiaries of the advanced world live comfortable lives when compared to that of the average free man in the third world.
The question that pours from my mind is, even in this comfortable state of prisons, why do prisoners move for a prison break? The answer dwells in man’s insatiable desire for freedom.
No one loves the barricades of life. Prison walls may not physically bar us but we often find ourselves in situations comparable to prisons. These situations could be the lack of money, social insecurity, ill health, academic regression, failed business, depression or whatever you feel bars your achieving a feat. You may be thinking, how you are going to break free from the situation that has barred you. What you need is a prison break.
If you have to break free from that encumbrance, you will have to think like the prisoners who plot prison breaks. They begin first with a desire to be free. Do you have a thirst to be free? If you do, then you are set to go. The picture of your free status must fill your mind until all you see is the image of you in that free state away from your encumbrance even though you may not be there at the moment.
Make a plan. Those guys at the prison are often very smart. They look out for security breaches and holes searching for consistency in movement and seizing on opportunity. If they are unable to get all the help they need within themselves, they get from outside the prison. You must have a plan to see your desire come true. Draw out your strategy for achieving what you want to achieve. Get help from books or people who have gotten through similar challenges. Align your thoughts with them.
Hatch the plan. Plans could be great on the drawing board but that’s how far it would go except there is an action to see through the plan. This is when the prisoners maneuver their way through the barriers placed by the prison system sticking strictly to the plan. Sometimes though, they would have to make last minute adjustments. You have a plan set out, see through the plan. Expect some hitches somewhere, which will need little adjustments. There could be strategies that could be helpful that you never thought of until that last twitch so keep your mind open.
Successful? Free prisoners run for their lives the moment they reach the home stretch. They flee the prison area finding solace hundreds of kilometers away. Achieving breakthrough, you move away from your failures to success, weakness to joy, lack to plenty etc.
Not successful? Sometimes it happens that hardwork pushed into a prison break does not yield the required success. Either security personnel get to know the plan or some miscalculation had happened somewhere. You could have worked so hard believing that your entire plan would work out just fine. Great if it does. However, if it doesn’t, what will you do? Scream? Off course not. You have to go back to the drawing board and plot afresh.
The only reason you can be stuck where you are is “contentment with the status quo.” If you push for a break, it is only a matter of time before a breakthrough transpires.
PROCRASTINATION: PRO CRASH THE NATION
Don’t wait till 12.00am, a leaflet carrying a picture of a clock read before my eyes. I was so engrossed with interpreting its meaning that the picture became clear. Time is precious commodity. One can never have enough of it, yet in the face of this startling reality, much of it is wasted. The irony that characterizes time is the thought that there is so much of it. We count many years ahead looking into the future only to be shock at how much has gone before our eyes.
It seems a normal phenomenon pushing today’s actions for tomorrow. We assume that all the time is available to get a task done but we forget that each day comes with its own set of tasks. Every day produces enough for each day. Each day’s achievement is measured by how much we are able to get done within the time frame of the day.
Through history, great achievements have being rubbished by the failure of would-be achievers to act when they should. Christopher Columbus deferment of his desire to cross over from the West Indies to the mainland of America cost him the opportunity to have the continent bear his name. Maybe today the American continent would have borne the name Colombia. Michael Ford’s delay at releasing his automobile patent cost him the title “the inventor of automobile” to Karl Benz.
The putting-off of a now event for later has posed disastrous to many military campaigns. Hitler’s Nazi Germans delay at crushing the English brought about the greatest comeback in history and the decline of Hitler and the Germans. The increasing spate of terrorist attacks across the world is a result of the failure of governments across the world to act when they should have acted.
The power in an idea is when it is carried out now. The only time you have to own your idea is now. We may assume that our idea is ours to keep however, there are many other persons who are also working towards the same idea. The first to get the idea working owns the idea. Researches are ongoing to develop the cure for ailment such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola etc. It would be great if every one of the research centers develop each, their independent cure. However, the first to develop the cure will claim to be the discoverer of the cure to this ailments however much the number of research centres working to find the cure.
The nation needs actors who know what to do, how to do it and are choosing to get it done now. The change anticipated is a change for now. Change isn’t for the future. The future change has to begin from each now step. Our anticipation of future change when present actions are not taken is a blind step that is bound to cause some swaying.
Man’s tendency towards procrastination is hugely because of his vague understanding of the value of now. Economists know the impending danger of inflation to any project or commodity if it fails to be carried out at the time it was intended for. Often, developers cost building projects based on present cost and time -frame allowing for allowances in case of inflated price during the period of the project. They are aware that the cost of carrying out a project meant for now will cost less than the same project planned for the future.
The culture of procrastination is fast eating deep into upcoming generations. You’d hear a mother ask her son to carry out a task and the son replying that he would carry it out later. Why not now?
Our nation struggles to find her feet because what should have been done decades back was left undone transferring years of failed task to this present time. If leaders act immediately they discover a little dwindling of service in an area of the economy or society, running the government and the country in general would cost less.
When duties that would be of help to the nation isn’t carried out when its most needed and less costly, it lives a costly gap that must be filled in the future. Roads won’t fail if the man in charge of maintenance checks on the roads as often as expected and covers portholes before they become gullies. House wont fail if cracks aren’t considered too little to be checked.
We must recognize that little actions jettisoned today could lead to catastrophes tomorrow. The time to act is now. Act now, don’t delay.