Challenges are oftentimes the pathway to success. Whatever we're going through or whatsoever our predicaments are at the moment will all be forgotten in a short while if we can only face our predicaments head-on. Challenges are there to make you stronger and build you up in other to achieve your goals. If we don't have challenges we might not be able to appreciate the good things that success brings.
Many successful men, both dead and alive are products of challenges, trials and setbacks, they all have one or two negative stories. Life was not a bed of roses for them all. In church today, we studied six men who we called Heroes of Faith. We looked at the lives of Abraham Lincoln, Barrack Obama, Archbishop Benson Idahosa, Pastor E.A. Adeboye, Nick Vujicic and Cobhams Asuquo. These men went through challenges of various kinds and faced them head-on. Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room cabin. He lost eight elections, failed twice in business and even had a nervous breakdown, he could have quit many times but he didn't. He endured a life of failure and defeat before becoming the 16th president of the United States of America. He is the greatest example of persistence. Our second hero, Barrack Obama, grew up without his father and faced many challenges of his own. He once said that the fact that he grew up without a father of his own was one of the most painful character building of his life, that as a young man he didn't have a lot of role models and made a lot of mistakes but he learned to figure out that there are certain values that were important to him that he had to be true to. Today he is the 44th and the first African-American president of U.S.A.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa and Pastor E.A. Adeboye were both from poor backgrounds. Late Idahosa was rejected by his father for being so frail and sickly. On one of his fainting spells, his mother presumed him dead and abandoned him in a rubbish heap, hours later he came to and began wailing and was rescued by his mother. He was denied access to education till he was fourteen. He is referred to as the father of pentecostalism in Nigeria. At the time of his death in 1998, he was reputed as having preached to more whites than any black man and more blacks than any white man. Pastor E.A. Adeboye's parents were extremely poor and it was difficult to provide him a formal education. He is said to wear his first shoe at age 17. Today he has a PhD in Applied Mathematics and he is the General Overseer of the redeemed christian church of God, one of the fastest growing churches worldwide. In 2008, he was named as one of the fifty most powerful people in the world by Newsweek magazine.
Nick Vujicic and Cobhams Asuquo are both physically challenged, with Nick born without arms and legs and Cobhams born blind. As a child, Nick suffered emotionally, mentally and physically until he eventually came to terms with his disability. Today he is a well-known evangelist, preacher, motivational speaker and the Director of Life Without Limbs, a non-profit organization. Cobhams on the other hand has turned his challenge around and he is a well known music producer and songwriter. He once said " I believe strongly that one of the strong elements that fuel my very strong sense of imagination and my ability to dream is the gift of blindness."
These heroes have turned around their situations and challenges for the better. Today they are role models and their stories are source of inspiration to all those facing one or two challenges. Learn from them and never forget one similarity between the six of them, which is the strength to never give up. My Pastor said "Success is not gotten through wishful thinking and emotional outburst but through determination and hard work"
Teejay
http://teejay-online..com/2013/12/heroes-of-faith.html?m=1