WHAT IS IN YOUR HANDS?

Standing in front of a threatened people, beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead. Moses' reputation hung on the weighing balance before his people and before the red sea. It's been a long boring walk to freedom. Their destiny journey and the red sea looked each other in the eye, and together they looked up to Moses for action. He was not used to this but with the hopes of a generation strapped to his courage, he had to take action or perish. And really, you never know how strong you can be until being strong is the only option you have.

What else would the righteous do?

He looked up to God.
God asked him, "What is in your hands?"
"A rod," Moses said.
"Strike it on the water" the Lord told him.
When he did, a rumbling arose in the womb of the sea, mighty walls of water piled on each other in quick succession. It was a totally new experience and the eyes of the Israelites rolled up the high water wall. Wowed by this wonder, they began to walk through.
Yet in the midst of their miracle, came the chariot of their adversaries, hot-breathing, sword-wielding oppressors pursuing them through the parted water. But it was too late to stop a generation with a speaking rod.

A generation's walk to a place of destiny could have been truncated if the rod in the hands of Moses had not been leveraged upon. If he did not know God, the Master of creation, it would have been difficult to know the worth of his rod.
What is in your hands that you have been neglecting? A woman when asked what she had, she said 'only a pot of oil' but from that pot of oil came sustenance.

When Jesus wanted to feed the five thousand, they found only five loaves and two fish. Yet after he gave thanks, there was enough to eat and much more to gather. Are you properly exploring what is in your hands? Or could it be that you've not been grateful enough with the little you've already received?

Think about it, that thing in your hands could be the hope of a generation, that idea in your head could be listed as one the next Fortune 500 companies soonest. Nothing fails in your hands today. Have a wonderful day.

Sincerely Yours,
D-Motivator.

THE NEW NORMAL

Recently, I’ve been reviewing what makes people live an average life. My mind has not yet come up with a comprehensive answer but one thing is clear to me. All those who desired to be outstanding took their mindset above normal existence. They took a conscious decision, they worked at it and with time, they became outstanding.

There’s something common among normal people, they only work when they feel cool, they set sail when the sea is calm, they take off when the coast is perfectly clear, they wait to see the whole stairs before they can make the first attempt, and then they fall, feeling unlike it. So in waiting for perfect moments, for El dorado and bliss, the Sun goes down on their goals, the moon shines on their laziness, the stars sparkle across their indecision and this normal sluggard is yet to wake up from slumber.

According Maya Angelou, if you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be. In the Bible Story of David, when David decided to become a Lion killer, he was not looking for who to impress. When he killed a bear that came to attack the sheep he was taking care of, he was not showing off to anyone, as a matter of fact, the act was not even before an applauding audience. He was bold, daring, courageous, amazing, not because of eye service but because his convictions were real, he did not want to be normal, he wanted to be outstanding.  

The problem with most people today is that they are too busy looking for applause while lacking content; they are looking for validation but they are simply normal folks, doing normal things and getting normal results, never able to get ahead.

Truth is, you were created to be amazing, but you need to infuse this into your thinking, especially when you feel down, when your fuel dries and it seems like life does not make any sense in the immediate. This happens to everyone at some point in life but your ability to stay afloat, to refuel your passion will keep you on course to being amazing in life. Quitting normal life starts with a mindset to dare to be different, outstanding and willing to take a road less traveled by.

Join us on Sunday, 20^th September, 2015, by 3pm at Hotel de Horizon, Right Turn after Banex, Wuse 2, Abuja at Motivators Roundtable, Abuja. It’s a programme organized by Motivators International and it creates an amazing time for Young Professionals in Abuja to network, interact and activate excellence. Our guest this month is Dr Charles Ononiwu, the Founder and President of Youth With A Purpose, YWAP and also a Consultant Maxillofacial Surgeon. He is an amazing personality with a heart for young people. His organization, YWAP has reached thousands of young people discover their purpose in life.

He will be speaking on the theme, The New Normal.

I look forward to welcoming you in our midst.

GROWING UP

Hey, lovely people, welcome to a new month.

Who's excited about September? It will be awesome. We will have more engaging stuff here. And also, in Motivators International, we'd have a couple of things to talk about. Hope you get to join us in any of our Motivators Roundtables in Abuja, Port Harcourt and Lagos to connect with young professionals and also polish yourself unto excellence.


Well, this month, we'd be looking at what it takes to grow up.

Growing up could mean different things to different people, to some it means being able to secure a job and take care of one’s needs, to another, it’s being able to graduate from college and to someone else, it means being able to overcome a certain type of fear. All of this is part of what it means to grow up but there’s really much more. When we were Children, we taught like Children. But when we grow up, we put away childish thinking.

Personally, when I was a child, I used to love milk. I promised myself that once I had enough money to buy milk, I will drink and drink until the heavens draw a little nearer the earth. And because when we were growing up, daddy used to make tea look like swimming pool, nestled in a big jug - where everyone pours out the light liquid with grudges, hoping that daddy will look away so we do the needful by scooping more milk and Bournvita into the transparent liquid - I promised myself a type of tea, thick as emulsion as compensation. But now that I have money enough to buy milk, I have bigger things to bother about.

But growing up also entails disrupting old mentality, bracing up for bigger dreams, stretching and striving for significance. Everyone gets to grow up in some way. And if we fail to realize this, change happens to us, whether we like it or not. People may hurt you at some point in your life, sometimes it's even people you trust. But would you grow up? Would you grow up not to presume too much on people's love because they might do something you'd be sorry for? Would you grow up to know that if your dream has to live, it's up to you? Would you grow up and learn to control your anger? Would you grow up to know that only the bold and daring sip nectar from life's beautiful cross pollination? It's worth it, yes, growing up.

Growing up sometimes means making the move at the stirring of the waters, it means knowing when to go in for a fight and when to stand aside and allow life happen. Growing up is beautiful but sometimes, it comes with letting the scale covering our eyes to fall off and crumble, it means allowing the billowing courage in our hearts to blossom so we can see the Sun rise with a new energy in its wings and whisper to us, 'it's time to grow up.'

Welcome to September.

GRATEFUL HEART

Too many times I am so excited I want to fall out of my seat. Not because I won a jackpot but because I'm alive. It's something to shout about. Words bubble through my heart in moments like this, and pour forth in praise and thanksgiving unto God.

Too many times also, I feel less excited about life, I become burdened by the need to birth dreams and my passion for a world where people are better empowered to achieve their purpose. Many times, yours sincerely, D-Motivator needs motivation. But thank God for the Holy Spirit who helps us with joy enough to draw water out of the well of Salvation.


Truth is, too many people who you think have life all perfectly figured out have their own silent burdens. Stuff they don't bore the social media world with. You may have your own fears too, you may have your worries but the scripture urges us to cast our burdens unto the Lord for he cares for us.

I remember listening to Mark Vujicic, the man without limbs who is making waves and touching people's lives with his life of service and gratefulness unto God despite his disability. According to him, he summed up his life at some point and thought, 'I'm never gonna get married, I'm never gonna have children, I'm never gonna be able to live my dream because of my disability.' But today, all those his fears have melted away, he is married now and his second baby just arrived. Today, his dreams more than fulfilled.





So fear not, be encouraged. God knows the fears of your heart, he loves you more than you can imagine. With him, your disabilities will turn to abilities. Just learn how to be thankful for what you already have and what you are looking for will make a hasty arrival. God knows the way he is taking you through, and after you are tried and tested, you will come out purified, refined as gold.

In all you do today, Be Happy, Be Exceptional, Be You.
Welcome to a new week.
Sincerely yours,
D-Motivator

FAITH

Lovely people, I've been really busy but I can't forget to bring to you the end of this short story titled Faith. To connect better with the story, you might want to read the first one if you have not yet done so. Enjoy.

Part 2
'Make sure you tidy the kitchen before you go to that stream and swim away the whole day.' Mama tells Olanma. 'And you, Emeka, fetch water and fill up the container in the kitchen.' Mama shouts like a Police Corporal, dishes some more orders before leaving for her August meeting. I am sitting at the paIour, watching the seconds hand of the clock run a marathon. I am waiting for Toby to come. We shall finish the game and then go and try to woo Urenna, that girl that speaks from her nose.


When Mama finally leaves, I am lost in thought. 'Faith always delivers to those who believe.' These words are crawling under my skin now. Will my faith help me beat Toby's Barcelona when he comes seeing that I've never beaten him before? Will it deliver Urenna to me and grant me my first kiss ever? Will it allow Papa to buy me a bicycle on my next birthday? I have no faith experience. I think I should first learn to get some white Uri on my finger nails from the cattle egret.

I walk outside through the front door and towards the field. Luckily, I can see the Aboki standing by his cow and the cattle egret supervising their grazing. I lift my hands, stretch out my fingers, my voice gradually loses its shyness,

'Shekele nyem mbo ocha ma were mbo oji...'

There are three things I want beside a white sign on my finger nails; beating Toby's Barcelona, winning Urenna's love and getting a bicycle from Papa on my 14th birthday.

*The End*

FAITH

Olanma, my younger sister, likes waving her hands at the white cattle egret whenever they appear at the break of dawn. She looks on with the vigilant eyes of a night watchman and the helpless courage of a hopeful maid.

She is asking for beautiful patterns on her finger nails. A song perches on her lips, she is bursting with lullaby, sonorous like Ogene Ndigbo,


'Shekeleke nyem mbo ocha ma were mbo Oji.' She repeats this many times.

Her voice radiates the colour of Handel's messiah as she waves her hand up and down. Through the binoculars of faith, she sees them; through the prisms of hope, she anticipates and the white patterns seem to find a way to show up.

Three days later, we are seated on a wooden bench at the backyard, Olanma and I. The wind is whistling through the mango tree not too far from where we are seated. Mama is cooking Ofe Nsala, a kind of soup that possesses super powers . Both of us are caressed by the Ofe Nsala aroma. Olanma is examining her fingernails, a new pattern has appeared. I don't know how. I am thinking of what I would do to Messi in the unfinished Chelsea and Barcelona encounter between Toby and I. Toby is so good with PS2 he will pass for a computer cheat. I will remove Falcoa once the second half resumes, he is a vestigial part of a tree trunk. I conclude. Chelsea is my colour, PS2 is the passion. Football is the game.

The Rainbow has dispersed its colourful pride. The rain has stopped sighing and the Summer holiday is already here. Olanma nudges me. 'What are you thinking of, biting your lips? Can you see the pattern on my nails?'
I do not see anything. I pretend. I am busy dribbling Messi. Olanma is like that, she will not let me rest; 'Brother look nah, don't you like my white nails? Faith always delivers to those who believe. Can you see my nails?' Olanma says. I finally oblige. I examine her nails and see the newly acquired patterns. At ten, Olanma says some things too wonderful for the ears to understand.

'This is Superstitious,' I tell Mama at the dining table. 'Yes, it is Superstition,' mama concurs. 'No, it is faith,' Papa interjects as I imagine a ball of fufu make a hasty arrival down his throat. 'Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, it is..., it is...' He seems to forget some of his lines. Ofe Nsala is working wonders. 'Yes, it's the universe that delivers to you your expectations. Your faith activates the imagination.' Thankfully, he remembers. Papa can be like that, a magnetic field of inspiration, when food is not far-fetched.
(Watch Out for Part 2)

WHAT TIMIDITY WILL DO TO YOU.

 When I decided to learn how to speak in public, I was looking for a great platform, forgetting that there are platforms everywhere.
I did not know where to start from and my first outing had been pretty bad. I had been nominated as an Assistant Secretary in our youth fellowship and I was asked to give the announcement. I could not face our small congregation. Standing in front of everyone, bikemen were rioting in my head. The rioting bikemen in m...y feeble mind spilled the words out of my mouth. I was saying things but I could not hear myself.


To help my flustered confidence, I cracked a joke which refused to settle. Then everyone gave me this what-exactly-are-you-saying kind of look. What else will the righteous do? I began to explain my joke. But nope, I did not finish. Someone scratched his head, another batted an eye brow. I stepped down that podium, fired up that there has to be a better way.

After that encounter, the mirror in our room became a closer companion. I was always practicing, speaking, letting the mirror judge me, becoming the victor, triumphing over the vanquished. I joined the drama group, prayer group, evangelism, anything that would help. I practiced severally and my next assignment was like a stage play delivered with the precision of a well-rehearsed script.

Today I look back on those days when my lips were stuttering, when I would decide to preach in a bus I was traveling in, only to end up looking at trees and electric poles as they sped by. I see how God's grace was released to help my weakness, I see how the courage to speak up has shaped who I am. I am still becoming for according to Jim Conor, life is an unfolding process of becoming.

Many times, we want to achieve something but we don't want to do what the task demands. We want to wish the responsibilities away and embrace the result of the process. But the first task is to start the process. To ask the right questions. When we ask uncommon questions, we get uncommon answers. Yet it will take a measure of boldness to run towards the answers to the asked questions.

Today, much practice in the area of speaking has washed away my timidity. I have not attained the height I want but I am not where I used to be. Timidity rubs people of who they could be. It is the difference between schooled people getting nothing achieved and unschooled people accomplishing so much. Audacity will buy you more in the market place than timidity would give you in a life time.

No matter where you come from, no matter your religion, timidity will rub you of your shine while courage will push you a step further to the life you've always dreamed of. Which would you embrace today?
Timidity or Courage?
Stand Out, Be Exceptional.
Sincerely yours, D-Motivator.