Statements of Great Achievers

FIRST STATEMENT OF 

GREAT ACHIEVERS

PREFACE

It is certain that each and every one of us would want to succeed in one venture or the other. When we see successful people or hear the stories of great achievers, we strongly desire to be in their shoes – have good jobs, establish great businesses, become affluent and possess fame and influence. Consequently, where the possibility seems obscure, we become so desperate that we tend to think either God did not create us well or life itself is unfair to us.

But is it a true assertion that God did not create some people well while he created others better? Does God love one person above the other because one is ‘good’ and the other is ‘bad’? No! At the end of creation, the writer of Genesis states, 

“Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way. This all happened on the sixth day.” Gen 1:31 (NLT)

None of God’s creation, not even the tree of good and evil, was with any blemish after creation. In fact all men were created well by God and for success because God has nothing like failure in His plans.

This only have I found: God made mankind upright but men have gone in search of many schemes. (Eccl 7:29)

However, the controversial question is that if God created everyone excellently, as the Psalmist says, Fearfully and Wonderfully (Ps.139:14), how come then could one person become better off than the other? Why do some people have their names attached to great achievements whilst others remain in failure and abject poverty? Of cause, the Lord of justice cannot be blamed for that because ‘… whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.’ Gal 6:7. As for God, He made mankind upright but men have gone in search of many schemes.

We have no one to blame for our fortunes or misfortunes but ourselves. “You are the creator of your universe”, says Winston Churchill. The way you lay your bed is always the way you will lie in it. You may not be responsible for where you are but you are undeniably responsible for staying there.

What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others.

William Golding

Many people have ever passed the way on which you tread – they went through all forms of hardships and difficult situations, especially that monster called poverty. But they were able to engrave their names in the history of success. Others even trod on more dangerous paths yet they could change destinies.  Doubtlessly, history has abundantly provided us with great men who were not better off before they embarked on their various ventures that led them into the Hall of Fame of Success. Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Bill Gate – name them; they will tell you their adventures through poverty, struggles, imprisonment, disappointment, etc.  Everybody comes to this world naked with clenched fist but empty palms.

Often, when we decline from blaming God, we swiftly turn our ‘red eyes’ on life. And all we say is that life is unfair. Sometimes ago, considering the conditions I was born in and the circumstances surrounding my life as an orphan who never saw my daddy, I also used to say life is unfair until the Holy Ghost once replied, ‘if you think life is unfair, remember also that everyone has a fair share of that unfairness’.

I pondered for a while over the reply and indeed I was able to discover at least several friends and acquaintances who were one way or the other better off than I was yet they have reasons to envy my position in another way or the other.

Out of that message came this poem:

This our world is unfair

Yes this world is unfair

Yet everyone has a fair share

In history, all glories

Have their own strings of stories

Look not onto your conditions

And consider others better in their positions

Because this our world is unfair

But everyone has a fair share.

The story of the suicide man

A man wanted to commit suicide after observing that the world had failed him. He went into a forest, tied a rope around one of the branches of a tree and removed his clothes, the only necklace he had and his pair of bathroom slippers. He climbed the tree but before he could hang himself, a passer-by appeared on the scene. This passer-by did not see the man. He saw the clothes, the necklace and the bathroom slippers. This passer-by burst into song of joy thanking the Lord that he has found something to wear to church the next Sunday.

The suicide man became stunned and jumped down, saying “I’m sorry sir, I refuse to die. Let me have my clothes, necklace and slippers.”

From that day, this suicide man did not weep over his predicaments in life. He instead persisted to go higher over his prevailing position by not weeping and thinking life was over for him.

WHY ARE SOME BETTER OF THAN OTHERS?

A very proud friend called Mary Mangesi once asked me this question on the University Campus: ‘If life is unfair yet everyone has a fair share – and indeed God created us all equal –  why then are some people better off and others are able to make it in life than others? Is it that God loves some people more than others?

I answered simply, ‘No’. She replied, ‘then something makes the difference’. I agreed, very quickly and added, ‘that difference has to do with how you perceive life and calculate the circumstances surrounding you… That also is influenced by the angle from which you stand and telescope the whole scene.’ While others look intently at the mountain and consider it an insurmountable dream to climb, others view it as the height of all joy and so climb upwards. While others look into the valley and consider it too deep a hole to enter, others view it as a fertile portion for planting.

Life itself is a garden we are born into – to cultivate. Every empty palm at birth is filled with different seeds we have to sow in life. The responsibility to sow those seeds is not in the hands of the giver of the seeds but to the receiver. Yours is to or not to sow at all.

A seed in a farmer’s hands gives him three alternative courses of actions: to throw it away; to eat it; or to sow it. The same choices of actions lie before every receiver of life. While some threw their seeds away and became failures, others also ate their seeds and went hungry till death took hold of them. Some sowed theirs and made it.

But to those who sowed their seeds, the type of seed they sowed also counted much. The fact that you have different seeds in your hands does not mean you can sow every and any seed. If you do not select out of the seeds available and you sow just any seed, your chance of failing is arm opened. Again, not every soil is even good for your seed. That is why some would say ‘I have done my possible best but I can’t just make it’. Christ Jesus illustrates:

And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth…But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. (Matthew 13:3-8 KJV)

The choice of sowing does not automatically guarantee success. It is rather the act and manner of sowing. To pin it better; success depends absolutely on how you garden the seed in your hands – your plans and strategic effort.

Success also has something to do with how you approach issues, situations and challenges. There are different ways great achievers approach issues, situations and challenges, thereby earning them the name as successful men and women. The path to success is neither short nor smooth. While success itself is a load, only tough men and women can get going on the toughest path. Never be deluded that the path to success is rosy and cozy. Do not think great achievement is some plantain and groundnut someone would roast for you to have over night.  

No great thing is created suddenly. -Epictetus

 The height by which great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight but they, while their companion slept, were toiling upward in the night - Longfellow

You have to forge your own path to success. No one would do it for you. All that somebody can do is to help you take one or two steps ahead. But not to take you from the start to the very end, carrying the load for you. That is the role I am going to play on your way to success – to help you take the first three steps that was inevitable while great achievers began their journey and the building of their castles of success. Whether my support would be successful or not depends on you – the discipline you would employ to let the principles work for you. After all I am also just a youth, journeying together with you on this very path into the castle of success.

One day while I was meditating on the word of God, the Holy Spirit sparked a discussion with me. All my life, I am determined to engrave my name on the tombstone of great achievement and at the least chance, I question the Lord on how to do it or the next path to take because evidently (by sight), there isn’t any resource to start with. At the end of the discussion, the Holy Spirit left me with three most important statements all great achievers placed on the tongues of their lives. They are superb – surest way to make it in life.

Not to be selfish, I desire to share them with you so that both of us can trudge into that most fertile land flowing with milk and honey – called success, great achievement, prosperity, affluence…fame, etc.

The first three most important statements that really get great achievers going are rooted in the 3PCs – Positive Conception, Positive Confession and Positive Confirmation. I call them ‘The Three Positive Statements of Great Achievers’. Should I have the chance, I will name my child CANWILLIAM (CAN-WIIL-[I] AM) OKAI, after this all important principle. They are:

I CAN                         – Positive Conception

I WILL           – Positive Confession

I AM               – Positive Confirmation

‘I CAN’ has to do with your positively perceived abilities; ‘I WILL’ has to do with your positive desires; and ‘I AM’ has to do with your positive actions which shall confirm the potency of your ability (can) and desire (will) to become a great achiever. The three operate like the hearth, two cannot function without the other one, and neither can one function alone.

On the other hand, the three negative statements of all failures are;

I CAN’T – Negative Conception

I WON’T – Negative Confession

I AM NOT – Negative Confirmation

In this series, I am going to deal with the first positive statement of Great Achievers: I CAN. Endeavour to get a copy of the remaining two series.

I challenge you to follow the ancient paths of greatness and having your name attached to the string of names of great achievers would be inevitable.

This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls…

Abeiku Okai

Senya-Beraku, Ghana

30-05-07.