REFINER'S FIRE.

I remember this saying my high school principal loved, ‘the heights that great men achieved was not by sudden flight but they while their mates were sleeping stayed awake, toiling’. We do know that gold in its very crude state has little or no value. We really cannot utilize or recognize its full potentials until it has been refined. Gold in its pure state is beautiful, expensive n valued, well sought after. Loads of women n men part with thousands n millions just to purchase gold. Now, even though in the crude state, the very beginning, it was gold, if it had stayed that way, its worth n essence would never have been realized. It had every capacity to function like gold because the metallic properties were the same, but because of the state of its quality, it didn’t look like ‘it’. It took work, fire, stress n refining to make the REAL n TRUE ‘it’ emerge.

A lot of people live in shadows of themselves, trying to find their real n true self, searching deep into their core to get self knowledge. Maybe some of us even know what we are about but we just discover that we operate below the capacity that we know we posses. Something within us tells us we should n can be better than we are right now. Well, as we know, if gold had just folded its arms n ‘refused’ to go thru the fire, it would have stayed just as it is; crude n underutilized. Talk about struggles; been there, done that. Confusion; I never seem to be able to make up my mind. Being me; I’m not even sure I understand what that means at times. Someone once said that the richest place on earth would be the graveyard because of the vast deposit of potentials n talents untapped n undiscovered buried there. In fear, a lot of us are afraid to reach out of our comfort zone. We are scared we would be judged, looked down on or scorned n so we prefer to stay where we are n are used to than take a leap of faith that may land us in 'hot soup'. If the eagle does not spread its wings, flight becomes impossible. If an aircraft doesn’t take off, it cannot fly. If we do not step out of our comfort area, progress becomes difficult.

Principles are no respecter of people, if you can play by the rules, you get the results. Practice brings to perfection, what you work at gets better. Confronting issues is a process to finding solutions. What you sow, you reap. What am I saying? If we don’t get off our butts n begin to WORK HARD at our goals, dreams, purposes, relationships, career, finances, they ain’t gonna get better. In fact, they may get worse, because it is true that what you do not use, deteriorates. ‘Have you seen a man diligent in his ways? He shall stand before kings n queens n not ordinary men.’ ‘The diligent man makes use of everything he finds.’ When we are committed to working at n on things, we would find that we get better even though initially it might require a lot of time, stress n sacrifices. A relationship that is constantly worked on grows n becomes solid. Work usually produces harvest n rewards, results.

Knowing where we are going also determines the level of effort we put in. You wanna graduate with honors, you know it aint a piece of cake. It’s an easy thing to make wishes n plans n confess positive things that we want but are we ready to work for them? Faith with no works is meaningless; it takes work to prove your faith.

Now, the best way to know how a gadget works is to go through its manual put together by the maker, that way we can assemble the different parts with little or no stress n get the thing started. For some of us, the work we need to do is allow the manufacturer take us through His manual. ‘He said, before I formed you, I KNEW you’. This means, there is a you God knew n related with before you were conceived in your mother’s womb. Aren’t you curious to find out who that you is? The way I see it is there is already a manual that describes everything about how we are supposed to live on earth n who we are to be, different for each individual but because we have not bothered to find out what this manual says, we struggle n stumble on our way to self discovery. When we get this manual n begin to act it out, we open up ourselves to the refiner to take us through His fire, to bring us out in our purest state, to the right picture n person we were created to be. When we are functioning optimally, there’s this inner peace n satisfaction that we experience. We ‘occupy’.

When I am old n without my teeth (hopefully not), I want that deep seated satisfaction in me that I worked to be the BEST me n I would be going to the grave ‘empty’. I’m on the run, wanna join me?

Much love.