Shine Your Light by Ekekere Samuel Ufot - HTML preview

Chapter one

STRIKING FOR LIGHT

In the introduction, I used an illustration of a matchstick and a match box. When one wants to lit a fire, the stick is struck against the box. In every one is the tendency for light, however, worthless, lowly, and useless the person may seem. God had imputed in us this capacity. He couldn’t have made you useless. This tendency of light always lies there in us inert from birth till we find the right atmosphere that enables the striking for the light.

Because this attribute is naturally in us, we come inborn with the capacity to do great things naturally. The reason most persons don’t, however, get their light out to its true capacity is because they haven’t found the right trigger to get the light out.

Many years before the advent of the match box, our forefathers made use of stones and dried leaves. They’d scratch the stones against themselves and use the dried leaves to collect the fire. This process took time but subsequently produce fire. Today, it’s much easier with the match stick and box. That still doesn’t take away the fact that work has to be done striking the stick against the box.

The light in you can only arrive through tenacious hard work, passion and goal orientation to get it done. When the match stick is struck against the box, the goal is to get the light. One has to be passionate with each strike until the light arrives.

Discovering your capacity for light doesn’t come so easy. You have to put in so much energy and zest. You may not have the time to rest. This is the striking process. You have to tell yourself that however bad and challenging the situation, you would keep working on who you are. You’d never give up in spite of the prevailing darkness.

Striking for light requires persistence. You have to keep at it developing useful virtues and qualities. What you have is a tendency; it will remain a tendency until you work at developing it into reality.

The period of working out your light may be lengthy or short. The length doesn’t matter. What matters is the achievement of the goal at the end, the light that reveals itself from you to others.

When a child is born into the world, his capacity lies inert. Yes, he will speak a couple of languages and accomplish great things in the future but he doesn’t look like it as a baby. His parents work at training him. This period of training is the striking for light. The child at his tender age lacks the capacity to do it by himself however as he grows, the child begins to discover that light the parent have been working on and soon learns to take responsibility for it as he moves to adulthood.

Many factors determine the extent of light that arrives from a striking process. The following factors combine to influence the striking period.

• The right environment: the right environment stimulates creativity. When you find yourself in a creative environment, your creative skills are enhanced. You think like the environment you find yourself. A friend of mine learned to play musical instruments because his father played them. it was only natural
• The right people/ friends: the people around us can influence how we think greatly. It is always said that you don’t do better than those you hang with. If your friends are highflying, you will soon be flying high. If they are not, you’d roam with mediocrity. Though this may not be true for most cases
• The right finance: many persons could have done great things but they don’t because they lack the finance to fuel their ambition. A child may yearn for school but if his parents can’t afford it, he has to stay at home till money arrives for it.
• The right motivation: one may find himself in the right environment, have the right friends and may have money to fuel great ideas but if there is not motivation to arouse his interest, it’s a waste of time. Everyone needs motivation, a kind of spur to help one believe in his capacity. This motivation can come in the form of mentorship by renowned persons in a field, books, audios and videos and they are readily available.
• The right knowledge: what one knows can make or mar a person. Knowledge is a means to get power, applied knowledge is power. The process of discovering your light potential will require you study not for pleasure but for the sake of knowing so as to enable your potential. When you study, you connect with resources that trigger what is inside you
• The right attitude: a pastor revealed how he got a transferred anointing from his spiritual father because he was always humble, bowing his head whenever he had to speak to him. Some persons carry the capacity to trigger your light and they know they can but they don’t because you don’t subject yourself to them. One often has to stand under first in order to understand.

Everyone has potential. The problem for most persons is that we are wrongly positioned to get the light triggered. We are sometimes blind to the possibilities of our light and it remains in us dormant. For some, it is only after time has passed that they discover that they’ve wasted time and they begin to look out for means to use the light they have discovered too late with regrets.

Now is the time to trigger your light capacity and strike for that light. Now is the time, don’t wait till later.

That you are reading this book means you have huge mind capacity to study and discover your potentials. The process of discovery of your potential light sometimes comes naturally. If you discover you have a natural inclination to do certain things, you have a light potential there.

Sometimes, it’s not a natural process. If you learned to do something because you saw a person doing it and you loved it, that’s a light potential there.

It could be also that you learn from a book some art that you never knew before and you begin to work on it because you read it and you loved it; that could be a light potential.

One thing is certain, when you find that light spark, you’d certainly know it’s your light potential. That area of you that carries your potential will somehow always reveal itself. You’d just feel a natural attitude towards it. You will earn satisfaction and feel inspired doing much more in the direction of that light. For example, if you discover you can write, act, dance, or sing, that’s a light potential.

Anything you discover that you find joy doing, it is your potential. Strike for it.