What is the one thing that you are so passionate about that in spite of what circumstances you may be facing you always “go hard” and you always give it your all? For me, it is working out. For you it may be something else—church, clubbing, reading, work, school, etc. For me, the gym is home. It is a place where I do more than just condition my body; I also condition my mind, will and emotions. I was at the gym last night, in my own world, when a man whom I had never met interrupted Beyoncé “Ring the Alarm” on my iPod. I did not mind. That is what they invented the pause button. He said something to me that really provoked my thinking: “If your work ethic at the gym carries over into your work life, I know you have to be successful.” It is amazing how God uses other people to speak to us.
Success is something I believe most of us want and we all can achieve. Sadly, success is something few ever attain and it is not because of lack of ability, but the lack of work ethic. We live in such an instantaneous world where we expect everything to happen overnight, and when we want it, that we do not appreciate what the journey to success provides. So many give up. Ben Stein said that “it is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated…it is finished when it surrenders.” So many people have surrendered dreams of success and victory because they did not get what they were looking for when they wanted it, and they would not complete the journey.
Malachi 3:10 says “‘bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.’” (NIV) Many self-help authors/speakers say that the energy you secrete into the universe is exponentially returned to you in the form of benefit or favor. Regardless where your belief lies, we all have something in our life we are passionate about. Something we do that always makes us “feel” good, accomplished, control, etc. The question is what is that something? Is it the gym, your church, your family, career, social life, networking, music, dance, ministry, etc?
Whatever it is, think about all that you put into it and what you get out of it. Not just the material benefits, but how it makes you feel and how the relationships you have in those places have flourished. Now think of how much effort and benefit you have put towards that “thing”; that passion. You will see that what you receive from it is directly correlated to what you put into it. Now think about those areas of your life that you feel are lacking. Now what if you took the same energy, drive and determination you put towards what you loved to do, and applied it to those areas? If you put that energy towards how you treated others, how would much better would your relationships be? How successful could your prayer life be? How many more career opportunities would come your way? How much more could you learn?
Just think of the possibilities. “Whatever the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.”
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