Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men. Proverbs 22:29

SUCCESS is in the student, not in the university or the libraries in which he studied. Your potential are of greater value to your world than your credentials. Your credentials are of importance only if they accentuate your potentials.

It doesn’t matter how and where you started, you can make it to the king’s palace. David in the Bible started as a shepherd boy but went from there to become king in Israel. Moses started life in a floating basket but went from there to the Pharaoh’s palace in Egypt. Joseph came to Egypt as a slave but wound up as its Prime Minister. Mordecai went from being a gateman to becoming a great man in Persia. God came to earth in human form and was born to the chorus of songs composed and bleated out by sheep in a manger. But the child grew, and went ahead to become the saviour of the world. There is no reason why your background should be allowed to put your back on the ground. Be a lifetime producer.

You were made for distinction not competition. There is a coat of many colours that God put on you at creation that distinguishes you from the remaining seven billion human beings on earth. Consequently, endeavour to constantly draw on your uniqueness to consistently produce value. Those who are consistently valuable are never broke.

Work is not a curse. It is a blessing that God designed to confer dignity on man. Before God gave Adam a wife, he gave him a job. Your job is the platform of putting your sense of responsibility to the test. Disgust for work is nothing but a declaration of war on your own destiny for the simple reason that work is the platform on which God delivers the future to you! The world needs your productivity, not your grumblings. Productivity is the secret of the bee’s success. Because the bee is constantly at work, its product, honey, is one of the best gifts of nature to mankind. The world does not reward you for what you know but for what you do with what you know!

Stop looking over your shoulder or far ahead of you to see what others have accomplished. Just produce according to the grace given to you. Never struggle to be the best or else you could die in frustration. Just see to it that you give everything you do your best shot. Don’t wait till all conditions are right. Just keep working. Stay inspired. Give yourself a good reason to jump out of bed every morning. Spiders don’t compete with one another in web-spinning. One spider never seeks motivation from another before it spins its own web. Run the race of your life in the grace that God has given to you and you will never fall into disgrace.

What you have lost is nothing compared to what you have left
There is no reason to throw a pity party simply because things are not working your way or because someone sacked you from work. I met a young man recently who was one of the people laid off in the banking sector. Instead of feeling sorry for him, I simply asked him if he saw the opportunities that lay ahead of him. When he told me was a graduate of Estate Management, I asked why he took up the employment in the first place. He got the point - I hope!

No matter how much of the spider’s web you clear, as long as the creature is still alive, it’s only a matter of moments before it begins to spin another web! While there is life, there is always a way out. The Bible tells us that even a tree that has been cut down still has the prospect of growing again as long as there is a source of water. Roads only end at the death of dreams!

No man has taken your well until he has taken your shovel. If in doubt, ask Isaac in the Bible. He lost some wells to the envy and resentment of the Philistines. The one they didn’t seize, they blocked. Yet each time they took a well, he neither argued nor put up a fight. He simply moved elsewhere and repeated the process. Why? The wells without are simply prototypes of the wells within! When the Philistines saw that Isaac was not going to be cut down by their antics, their king quickly led a delegation to sign a peace treaty with him.

Only those with unfailing consistency and undying hope have the guarantee of unlocking the treasure chests of destiny. If in doubt, ask the spider!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!