God's strategies for success!

Hihi! It seems 2 me lk the blog is a bit dead. Tsk tsk..

Well well, we can't have that, can we? So thought i better go do something abt it then and start blogging again. Haha.

Anyway, this piece of mine is loooooooooooooooong overdued but i guess its better late than never...

So here goes, this is part 4 of God's strategies for success! May this word come forth and bless u greatly in life!!

4.BE CORRECTED BY YOUR DEFEATS
(written by Rick Warren and adapted by yours truly)

It is often said that in life; we must always learn from our mistakes. In Joshua 1:7, God says to Joshua in His prep talk “Be strong and very courageous and be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you. Don’t turn from it to the right or to the left [don’t get off track] that you may be successful wherever you go.” In short, God is actually telling Joshua 2 be careful and not get sidetracked. Even when you make a mistake, don’t get off-course!!!

Of cos mistakes are part and parcel of life. Everybody fails and make mistakes. If you blow something up, all i can say is... "Welcome to the human race!" We all make mistakes. We all commit blunders time and again. The bible says “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Heres an interesting fact for all of u: There’s an entire industry that makes a profit on your mistakes and they're built around the fact that you’re imperfect. Stop and think for a moment what industry im talking abt.

Haha, no worries. I'll tell u anyway...It’s the eraser/correction tape industry. Lets say if everyone were perfect, we wouldn’t be needing erasers or correction tapes at all. Cos nobody would ever make any mistakes. So as u can see, there’s an entire industry making a profit out of your boo-boos!

Successful people learn from their failures in life. They learn from their mistakes. Therefore, Be corrected by your defeats!!!

Thomas Edison once said “Don’t call it(mistakes) a failure. Call it an education!” Yes thats right! Don’t call it a mistake; call it an education, a learning opportunity for you! On a fun side though, If that’s true, some of you will be highly educated geniuses!!! LOL

KK, Lets bring it back 2 our book of reference here. Joshua 7 is an example in Joshua’s life that I’m talking about here. In it, we have the story of the defeat of the Israelites n a little town called Ai. Heres the background 2 the story: Joshua and the Israelites had gone into the Promised Land and they were winning battles right and left. They were knocking their enemies out. They took over Jericho, which was the most fortified city in the country and they were triumphant everywhere they went. In short, they seemed invincible.

Then complacency started to creep in and they started to become overconfident. They started saying “Look at what we’re doing!” instead of saying “Look at what God’s doing!” Thus, it gave them an attitude that says “We can do it, we don’t need God. We’re doing this all on our very own.”

So they came to a little town called Ai with several hundred people in it. They said “That’s nothing. Let’s just send out a platoon to wipe those guys out. We don’t even need to send out our army.” They sent out their platoon and guess what? They were embarrassed to death. They lost the battle. They were failures. They turned tail and ran.

Joshua then comes back and cries before the Lord, “What’s happening, God? You brought us through the Red Sea. You brought us through the desert. Forty years and You brought us to the Promised Land. We’re winning big victories and then some little bit town comes along and embarrasses us.”

Lets take a break here and reflect upon the story... I want 2 show u guys a truth here: It’s the Ai’s of life that often makes us weary and down, not the Jericho’s. Think abt what i just said, It’s the little things in life that somehow seems 2 drag us down, isnt it? I mean things in life that u thought u were confident of handling but somehow u ended up making a mess out of it. Aww...

Back to our story: In Joshua 7:5, Joshua then tore his clothes and he fell face down on the ground before the ark of the Lord and remained there until the evening. He’s praying and weeping and then God comes to him in verse 10 saying, “Stand up, what are you doing on your face?”

This is what God is actually saying to Joshua here “Joshua, shut up! Cut it out!! I don’t want to hear it!!! Get this straight; I don’t want to hear this you feeling sorry for yourself... Get up and do something about it!!!

In verse 11, God then says “Israel has sinned and they’ve violated my covenant.” The children of Israel then found out that one man named Achan had kept some of the spoils of the war for personal profit, when they were taking the city of Jericho. This was an act of defiance against God as He had told them not to keep any of the spoils of war in that particular battle. One man disobeyed the Lord and his disobedience affected the rest of the people. Somebody say "OH NO!"

Joshua then got up, found Achan and his family and confronted him with this sin. They punished the man and from that point on, God gave them victory again.

So what’s the main point of the story here? The point here is: Even when you have been defeated, when you’ve failed, when you’ve made a mistake, simply discover the cause and take the appropriate action. That was what made Joshua a successful person.

I want to share with all of u, 2 things that great achievers do in life:

1. They’re big enough to admit it when they’re wrong. They can say “I was wrong.” They can admit error.
2. They can do something about it. They don’t just stand there and moan and groan abt their failures. They do something about it. They learn from their mistakes.

We must always have the mentality to learn more from our failures in life, than we do from our successes. I cringe at some of the mistakes that I have made in my life, some poor judgements, dumb things, and things that I’ve learned from those things. So how do u go abt moving on from your shortcomings? 1 tip for all of u: Learn Fast! It doesn’t take me long in doing the same mistake many times before i get wise and think, “That doesn’t work!” God says, “Learn from your mistakes!”

It’s wise to learn from your mistakes; however, it’s even wiser to learn from the mistakes of other people. It’s wise to learn from experience, but it’s even wiser to learn from the experience of others. Why? Cos you don’t possibly have all the time in the world to make all the mistakes yourself. Life is just too short. Let some other people make the mistakes and you can then come forth and learn from them.

One interesting way would be to read biographies.(take note: your school textbooks are your priority k? Haha) Another way would be to always remain open and teachable. Ask God for insight when other people have fallen short in their ways. Say to God, “What should/can I learn from that?”

I’ve learned that you can always learn from anybody, if you just know the right question(s) to ask. I do believe everyone of you could teach me something if I knew the right question(s) to ask you.

Be corrected by your defeats.

end of part four...