USE WHAT YOU HAVE: Making The Most Of Your God-Given Gifts And Abilities
AUTHOR’S QUOTES
“There is more to who you are than your deficiencies, weaknesses, failures and handicaps. The truth is that by virtue of being God’s creation, you have gifts, talents and abilities though they may currently be underutilized, unnoticed or undiscovered.”
Look at this question I ask readers – “Do you allow your problems to rob you of the possibilities of deliverance, victory, success, breakthrough or even reversal of the situation?”
Read this in connection with the previous question. “Bartimaeus refused to allow his problems to deprive him of his possibilities.”
“God has created you to fulfil a specific purpose in your life and He has given to you exactly what you need to accomplish it. That does not mean it will happen automatically or that fate will ensure that it actually happens. Your presence here on earth is not by accident but purposeful and by divine design. Regardless of the circumstances by which you came into the world, God has a perfect plan for your life by virtue of the fact of being in the world.”
EXCERPT/SUMMARY
“The emphasis in this book is that no matter how far you may have fallen or how hopeless your situation may be, God is able to deliver you and take you to higher levels as you use what you have in cooperation with Him. Despite that reality, many people still build their lives around their deficiencies and difficulties and suffer the accompanying adverse consequences. In that vein, some people’s lives are governed by their grievances. Their lives are built around their grievances and they experience broken relationships as a result or may be often upset or infuriated with someone or about something. Others are led by their liabilities and naturally that works to their disadvantage. They focus on what works against their success and in so doing miss great opportunities for growth, development and eventual success. Yet others are controlled by their constraints. They minimize their possibilities of success and victory by focusing on their limitations, restrictions and inabilities. They devote most of their attention and energy to the wrong thing.
Have you ever been in such a situation in which you channelled all your mental and physical energy into a shortcoming or failure? In all these instances, people’s lives are built around their deficiencies. It is not that they do not have gifts, talents and abilities or have nothing working in their favour. Rather, it may very well be that their minds do not lock into possibilities to utilize what they have and they consequently miss glorious opportunities which others in similar situations have capitalized on and benefited from greatly.
Some people focus on their fears. That’s all they think and talk about. There are so many fears that almost everybody has at least one of them, but people who succeed and live in peace and victory do not focus on their fears. There are also people who blame their failures for every bad thing that happens in their lives while other more successful persons acknowledge their failures, put them in proper perspective and move on. Some people never recover from a failed exam, a failed job interview, a failed sporting competition, a failed marriage, a failed business enterprise, a failed experiment, a failed friendship or a broken family. As I said earlier, no one can be good at or succeed in everything and all of us fail at something. Therefore, don’t be surprised that you have failures in your life. Some of the great achievers experienced great failures, but they never allowed failure to deter them from forging ahead and fulfilling their life’s purpose. Some even persevered despite severe mental and physical challenges and other handicaps because they knew that they had something and used it.”