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.