MY SUCCESS EQUATION

It is my pride and pleasure to let you know that the journey that led me to this point in my life is really improbable. I can't say that I am not getting or will never get my fair share of failure and problems in life, because I already know that, " to live is to have problems and to solve problems is to experience difficulties."

One fascinating thing about my success opportunity today is that my personal efforts and sacrifices alone are too limited to have attracted the wonderful things happening in my life. When I look behind me, I see some church members pushing me ahead with their prayers of promotion. When I look left and right, I see few friends and family members driving me along with their words of encouragement and sometimes finances. When I look ahead of me, I see that some great men have already brightened my path with their inspirational success stories.

But when I combine all these strong forces with my own tireless and painstaking efforts and sacrifices, the result is still not equal to the incredible opportunities I have now. Then, I wonder where the extra support is coming from to balance my success equation. I sat down yesterday and felt inspired to write my success equation as: 4 + 3 + 2 + x = 1OO ( i. e, 4% of my present success comes from church members prayers, 3 % comes from the success stories of some great people I've read about, 2 % from family and friends encouragement, 1 % from my own effort and sacrifices; and X representing a certain percentage from an unknown extra power, equating all to 100% ). I know you won't believe that this simple equation was difficult for me to solve. It took me some painful hours but when I got through, I realized that x = 90. Then I wondered what force has contributed this huge percentage to my success in life so far, and why was this simple algebra difficult to solve. In that mood of absolute confusion, when I looked up I saw my Creator smiling at me. "Have you forgotten me, my son? Have you forgotten that even before you were conceived in your mother's womb, I had formed a purpose and plan for your life? " He said passionately. Inmmediately, I felt so ashame of my self and dropped the pen.

But the Almighty One said, "No, Emmanuel. Pick up the pen, and just write a new and shorter equation. Now, write G = 100, that is your success equation."

With the little courage I had, I asked, "But God what does G = 100 really mean? "

He looked down on me from His throne of grace and with a wide smile, He said, "You should have known that I, God (G), have given you all(100%) that you have ever had in you life and all that you will ever have. Remember I share my glory with no man!"

When I heard those strong words, I bowed my head in shame again.

"You see, Emmanuel" My Heavenly Father continued, "You should have looked up first before writing your success equation, it would have been so simple for you. But you were looking around to see who/what have helped you to achieve what you have now and you represented x for an unknown factor in the equation. So the equation was tough, right?"

I looked up to my Maker, smiled and said sincerely, "Oh yea, indeed it was tough!"

Then He explained to me, "This is why most people spend their precious years and tears to solve their success equation; with fears too"

I"m so glad that I now know that my success equation is simply: G = 100. God has simply been solving all my problems through people. That's all.

So what is your success equation? Write it down, smile, solve it and live by it.