this is an excerpt from one of the best inspirational books on earth today. call 07065910467 for a copy of advancing despite adversities
PREFACE
Only a few are oblivion of the fact that
Kenya is the hub of animal and wild life. A tourist to Kenya was once shocked
to a frazzle when he saw a little boy controlling elephants. He was startled by
the fact that these huge creatures could be tied down with a little rope tied
to their front legs. There were neither chains nor cages. Although it was quite
obvious that the elephants could break loose from their bonds at will, they
didn’t.
While this tourist gazed in disbelieve, the
trainer leveled up with him. He walked up to the trainer asking how he came
about such magic. “It’s not a magic”, began the trainer, “when they were very
young, and much smaller, we used the same little rope to tie them. At that age,
the rope was quite strong enough to hold them. After several fruitless efforts
to break away, they gave up. As they grew up, they were conditioned to believe
they can never break away. They still believe the rope can hold them. Thus,
they never again try to break free again”.
We may find the above story very laughable,
yet many of us are like those elephants. Many today have permanently packed
their bags in inaction just for a little act of opposition they once faced.
Many have chickened out at the middle of the road just for a minor obstruction.
No one expects a problem but it comes, often without warning. Our role and
natural responsibility is to prepare always at all time.
God often doesn’t shed us from problem but
rather gives us the grace to progress through them. Advancing through adversity
may sound ridiculous, but it takes the ridiculous to birth the miraculous
works. He has already assured us that he won’t allow a headache bigger than our
head to worry us. God give us triumphs through trials, advancement through
adversity and his crown in the cross lodge.
King Solomon once complained, “The wise
dieth as the fool dieth” (Ecc12:16B). Yes as it happens to the sinful fool, it
happens to the saintly wise. Although he was right, the preacher turned
outrightly wrong when he deemed it vanity and a vexation of spirit. What
happens to a man is not the end of the story; neither is it as important as
what he does with what happens to him. Life is full of actions and its opposite
reactions. Both may have the same experience, but what he makes happen with
what happened to him is what separates the wise from the foolish. A successful
life, said Edison Thomas, is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. My Bible
says and I believed it, “A righteous man may fall seven times but seven times
he shall rise again”. That’s the dividing factor. The wise falls, just like the
fool; but the measure of grace and ability to bounce back is not equal in
both. Problem leaves the fool bitter but
the wise gets better by it.
Every man’s life history is comprised of
two headings: Your challenges and how you handled them. How you handle your
challenges determines what it changes you into. Challenges are chances and
channels for changes-whether they are positive or negative changes depend on
the individual’s approach to them.
Real men neither resist changes nor are
they resisted by changes. Adversity is an apparatus for advancement. As no
skillful workman quarrels with his tools, only failures and indolent men avoid
or complain of adversity. Indeed, there is hardly anyone alive who has not at
one point or the other stumbled into adversity. It is like an unwelcomed
visitor that forces its self unto our lives. No one wants it, yet no one can
merely wish it away. Yet, adversity is a two facetted visitor whose outcome of
its visit depends largely on the host. James Russell Lowell captures it best
when he said, “Mishaps are like knives that either serves us or cuts us, as we
grasp them by the blade or the handle”.
Failures and adversities are what you make of
them. In the words of William Arthur Ward, “Adversity causes some men to break
and others to break records”. Lord Byron in his days called adversity, the
first path to truth. Writing on adversity, Horace observed that success in the
affairs of life, often serves to hide one’s ability, whereas adversity
frequently gives one the opportunity to discover them.
The truth remains that nothing advances one
like adversity. Like the water test in the days of Gideon, adversity is an acid
test that separates those who only wanted to from those who are determined to
succeed. Lord Chesterfield once said, “A man of sense is never discouraged by
difficulties, he redoubles his industry and his diligence, he perseveres and
infallibly prevails at last”.
This book will blow open your mind to see
how you have been sitting on a well yet wailing of thirst. If well studied and
religiously followed, it will advance one from one’s pitiable state of
adversity to an enviable height of success.
