Arise, Shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee...and the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and the kings to the brightness of thy rising-Isaiah 60:1,3
A number of times we lie in our rooms with so many questions and ideas in our minds. More often than not, these questions hardly ever get answered and our ideas never reach incubation stage. We tend to abort our ideas early and conceive others. At the same time, our lives are like a Merry-go-round: full of ups and downs.
Most of us have been exposed to situations that haunt our minds to such an extent that we are mentally crippled or paralysed by fear and mediocrity. The essence of living has been snatched away from you by the past that haunts you. Your experiences of the past have somehow captured you and enslaved you in an atmosphere of mediocre, failures, fears and nightmares and you do not know how to escape from them. The mind has reached a state of hardness from external stimuli. Even if we try to talk you out of the current state of mind; it will be like drilling through a rock that refuses to break.
Many people have been right there where you are and have broken through such state of mind and changed the world. The bible is full of examples of men and women, young and old who have been in similar situations or worse but they emerged victors. They had to take a bold conscious decision to defile the odds of life, detach from mediocre instillations and become giants against their own failures and challenges. Today we refer to them as conquerors and heroes. You can be one. You can emerge from the same situation as a better man or woman and be written in the world’s history books as such.
Today’s youth have to deal with a multitude of challenges ranging from family rejection to being left alone to be parents of small babies and siblings, academic failures to unemployment, from rape to teenage pregnancy and HIV with minimal to no support at all, peer pressures to absolute bullying at school and in the communities, drugs and alcohol to imprisonment and many others. In a world full of these challenges, how do you emerge a victor even with scars of war? Or even, how do you inspire others to do better?
The world offers us a stage where excellence defines who we are and not our integrity. The material achievement have become the label ascribed to by many young people without which life is not as fulfilling as should be. The systems that have been highly pronounced by media present us with a challenge of defending the reality of life against the shadows mostly known to be genuine.
When an angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon in Oprhah, (Judges 6:11), he was dealing with poverty, war, and mediocre. He and his family were faced with poverty while the entire community was in the midst of war. His family was among the least. He had concluded that he is nothing; a looser, least of the least and waiting to die when the Lord appeared to him and called him a mighty man. He gave him a label description that no one else ever ascribed to him. I am sure it came as a great shock to him, a shock that many still experience when they are told they are better than what they actually think they are.
That is similar to what many of us have had to deal with or are already classified as such by the community and our peers.
He had to first wrestle in his mind with the new identity that God was presenting to him. There was war in his mind between his current identity and the new identity which God was inviting him to live in. You have to break away from the old identity that was imposed to you by circumstances and your upbringing into the identity that God has originally placed on you from the beginning. God knows you better any living being on earth. He knows what you are made of and all your capabilities. He knows how to take you from where you are to where he has originally created to be.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11(ESV).
BIBLE HEROES-YOUR BUILT-IN DIVINE TRAITS
The transition from the current state to the realisation of the plans of God for your life will require bold faith. You will be faced with many challenges in life that requires transition. Some of these challenges are addressed in this book. You will, at some point in your life, be forced to make a decision to break out and away from the inhibiting circumstances that life currently presses on you to a better, yet challenging but fulfilling journey.
For example; David had to deal with his family not considering him as candidate when God needed to anoint a king from his father’s house. Even though he was ultimately anointed to be King, the fact that he was not considered by his own father could paralyse the confidence of a young man. But he did not let his father’s recognition or lack thereof define who he was meant to be.
Young Esther had to give up her youth into marriage to a king in order to save Israel (see Esther 4). I think some of the youth and teenagers are dealing with this aspect. Being faced with a responsibility to father or mother a child you did not have time to plan for. A large number of households are child headed in Africa. They are forced to do so because their parents are not there to do it for them for one reason or another.
Young Abel was killed by his own brother for giving a pleasing sacrifice before the Lord. Joseph, when he was still young had a big dream which his brothers did not believe in. Instead, he was hated and sold to slavery by his own brothers for having such a dream.
Have you ever felt like your own family hates you for the good things you are doing? Can you survive the rejection and exclusion from your own family?
These are some of the things that the youth today still face in one form or another. The challenges facing youth in the 21st century are such that some end up joining gangs to compensate for the pain they felt in their upbringing, some turn up to be bad husbands or wives because of their poor upbringing, some never enjoy their youth because of words uttered to them when they were still babies. Words such as; you are stupid; you will never amount to anything; you are ugly, I hate you and so on and on. These have left scars in the hearts of many young boys and girls and ripped them off of their great future.
Many of us have faced similar challenges in our individual lives. These and other challenges have made some to give up from life. Some ended their lives, some just totally resigned from pursuing their dreams. At the same time there are others who faced the same challenges before or at the same time as we did but they emerged victors. The difference is the mind-set.
INDIPENDANCE FROM IENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE
Someone told me this story which I find intriguing:
There were two young men born and raised in one family of the same parents. Their father was a heavy drinker and a drunkard. When they grew up to independence, one grew up to be a drunkard like his father; the other never tasted alcohol and was very successful. When they were asked on separate occasions as to how did they turn out to be what they turned out to be. They both gave the same answer: my father was a drunkard!
What is the difference between the two guys? This scenario explains what you and I are exposed to and what we can do. We can all be in the same situation but we do not have to become what the situation dictates for us. We should exercise the power of choice and boldly move from dictated and imposed realities to the real purpose God created us for.
With this book, I want to encourage every young man and young woman and show you that you can come out from the walls withholding you. I want to show you that you can be free from the place of low self-esteem, deal with the words once spoken to you, emerge a strong and confident person and show the world what you are made of. You are born of God and you can overcome any thing the world throws at you (1 John 5:4). Arise, stand tall and shine for your glory is risen upon you (Isaiah 60:1). Be bold.
