CODE-NAMED SETBACK: PATHWAY TO UNCOMMON SUCCESS!

CODE-NAMED  SETBACK: PATHWAY TO UNCOMMON SUCCESS! By FELIX N.JARIKRE

SCRIPTURAL ANCHOR: ROM.5:3-5, MK:16-17

Welcome to today’s letter as we pay attention again to Jehovah TROUBLE-MAKER  who allow our setback to be the unquestionable prediction of our come-back!  A wise man once said: “ Sweet are the uses of adversity.” Still, I have never seen or heard any man/woman praying, “ Lord Jesus, give me pain; give me more and more of it: because pain is sweet!” Truth is, we do all we can as much as possible to avoid adversity. While challenges and setbacks are not strange in life, sometimes they come in such a way that they become a serious threat to your ability to survive or thrive. Do you allow adversity to retire or re-fire you?  Does hardship give you an excuse to despair? Do you bury your head in the sand when confronted by extreme difficulty?  Do you panic and flail at the first sign of crisis? Do you become resentful as fearful memories of your past failures come rushing? While we do not pray for adversity to come, to resent it is to neglect the reward that comes with it. The basic scriptures are instructive: Adversity contains the raw ingredients that God uses to manufacture our SUCCESS VEHICLES! It is true. Adversity brings into the open unexplored options and choices that you would not have known were  available had you not been halted by pains and difficulties. So hardship is not designed to shame you, but enrich your experiences of life’s adventures.

When Ray Charles, blind from age six, was growing up, his mother had taught him not to have any part with self-pity. “You’re blind, not stupid. You’ve lost your sight, not your mind,” his mother had said to him. Not forgetting that, he developed his capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Struggling and unknown as a young man, his fellow musicians callously denounced his abilities to sing and play the piano, but he refused to abandon his musical ambitions. He stayed on track and persisted through trying circumstances. The rest is history as he went on to become a legendary international musical sensation. Alan Lock had to be discharged from the Royal Navy of England – his dream career –when an eye test, at age 23, revealed that he had a genetic abnormality leading to macular degeneration, that left him with only peripheral limited vision eventually. Despite grieving his fate, he refused to despair. Accepting what was not in his power to change, but rejecting a boring lifestyle, he decided to paddle a rowboat across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain to Barbados, raising money for charity. With an intense level of self-confidence, he travelled with a sighted friend, a GPS, and plenty of equipment. After 86 days in 2008, they completed their journey, and he became the first legally blind person to row across the Atlantic. So RE-ASSIGN, not RESENT your pain!!  And get a reward for your pain, instead of crying to quit!