Daily Devotionals

It takes a lot of work to change your world at a scale that matters. It will appear sudden to your world, but as an insider, you would understand the work ethic it demanded. You have to stop thinking your glorious purpose will manifest itself suddenly, all at once. You have to stop thinking that the changes you want to see in your world will happen through an unexplainable series of random events. They might appear random and miraculous to the observer, but in reality, the events were neither unplanned nor random. Operating by the grace of God is not a substitute for hard work. In fact, the grace of God will make you work smart, for as long as you need to, and as hard as you can. The grace of God maximizes your work.

Apostle Paul wrote, “but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10 ESV). We see here that the grace of God is not a substitute for hard work. Rather, grace fires you up for hard work. Just because we can explain how the children of Israel fought battles and possessed their promised land, does not mean that the mighty hand of God was not upon them.

It always appears sudden and unexpected to the world. However, behind-the-scenes, God has set in motion the necessary processes required for the results we want. The righteous, selfless leaders we need in our world will not drop from heaven. God will work upon your heart and mould you into a great leader over time. Your problems are not going to disappear suddenly. You will outgrow them with time. The great and mighty things God promised to do through you will appear to the world suddenly, but like Moses, you would know that God had been preparing you for decades.

The big success you want will not happen overnight. With some research, you discover that the typical overnight success story has taken many years to come together. There is only so much you can do every single day, or over the course of a week. However, success compounds over time. The little gains of yesterday are the foundations for the work we get to do today. A watchman must think about their work in this manner. You must develop an understanding that the changes you want to see in your world will take many years, even decades of persistent work. So, be ready to get dirty. Do the work and build a structure that can help you with your mission.

I found it thought-provoking when God spelt it out to Abram, that it would take 400 years before the land God promised him, could be possessed in the physical sense of it (Genesis 15: 13 – 21). 400 years. It eventually took 430 years of slavery, 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and several decades more before the descendants of Abraham took possession of what God had given them. The prophet Isaiah asked, “Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?” The answer is yes. However, the groundwork would have been laid down, decades ahead of time.

There is this idea that if something is of God, it will happen quickly, in a short period of time. This leads to impatience, poor planning and mediocre results in the long-term. We can put that quick results mindset in context, and deduce that for massive success, it will require many years for everything to come together. There is no idea, company or organization that rose to a position of prominence overnight. It took twenty years for slave trade to be abolished by the watchmen who took on the task, and almost another twenty for slavery itself to be ended.

In his 84 years, Thomas Edison acquired a record number of 1,093 patents, created the world’s first industrial research laboratory, and was the driving force behind a number of powerful innovations. Some notable ones include the phonograph, one of the earliest motion picture cameras and his most popular work; the incandescent light bulb. The legend around Thomas Edison paints a picture of a man who engages in a brute force approach to his work. He simply keeps going until he finds answers. His tenacity is commendable and worthy of emulation, but we must understand the intuitive nature of creativity. Creative and inventive ideas require intuition, an activation of the subconscious mind; the spirit.

There is a realm of creativity and inventiveness you can operate in, if you allow your spirit to lead the conversation. Nikola Tesla once said with regards to Thomas Edison, “If he (Thomas Edison) had a needle to find in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where it was most likely to be, but would proceed at once with the feverish diligence of a bee, to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search… Just a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor”. Thomas Edison was a hard worker that embodied the idea that “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. That you achieve results primarily through hard work rather than creative ideas.

Creativity is not just about working hard, it is about insights. There is no formula in “the natural” that grants insights to human beings in a way that is consistent. Things change when we make it a spiritual conversation, and reframe creativity as a spiritual endeavour. Nikola Tesla wrote, “My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists”. Tesla is referring to God. All intelligence comes from God; the Father of all spirits and we access it through our own spirit. Real inventions come from “somewhere” and you are better off learning how to channel the creative energy of God into this dark world. You can channel ideas directly from God and save yourself from 10,000 guesses that won’t work.

A watchman understands that nothing is more important than the mission. Nevertheless, having the right support structure is important. It will be hard to complete your mission without this necessary support structure. Which is where family comes in. Family life contributes immensely to an individual’s happiness. Only in a happy home life can complete contentment be found. However, it is not all smiles and hugs. Family requires commitment, sacrifice, and it seems to disturb the mission. An old proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others”. Commitment to family values will slow you down, but it is fine, because you will go further with the right family than without one.

Family is looking old-fashioned in today’s world. There is an unhealthy obsession with personal ambition and advancement over collective growth and wellbeing. This will produce nothing more than misery in the long-term. The most miserable people only care about themselves. How to drive their own agenda and handle their own troubles. No room to consider the troubles of others or care for others. This is blind ambition and must be condemned. When you exalt your personal happiness above everything else, you will see no use for the bondage of marriage and starting a family. You cannot win in the long run.

Nothing is more important than your God-given mission. However, if it is a mission from God, you would need your family as a platform to make it work. A proper family helps both parents and children to discern their missions in life. The nourishment, discipline, loving and peace-of-mind you need to tackle difficult problems, and repair the devastations of many generations is only available at a family-level. You are not running faster without the trappings of a family. It will not work. This is why the wise ones teach that your order of priorities should be: God first, family second and job third.

One of the greatest obstacles to progress is the fear of making mistakes. There are too many people that are paralysed by indecision, because they are afraid that taking any action could be a mistake. You want to succeed in your world. And making mistakes will never take you closer towards achieving your goals. Therefore, mistakes must be avoided at all costs. However, this line of thought is harmful in the long run. You want to make peace with the idea that you will make mistakes. The good news is that most of the mistakes you will make can be corrected over time.

Unless you work in surgery or fly airplanes, you should not be too worried about making mistakes. Those are two industries where you are required to make life-and-death decisions within seconds. There are no such stakes in your personal life. Your life is not an emergency room, and you will not die if it turns out you have made a wrong decision. There are very few mistakes that you will not be able to correct over time. What destroys people is not the initial mistake they made, but allowing the mistake to lead to even more mistakes.

Taking any action is always better than holding back because of the fear of making a mistake. This is because you would never know what is going to work until you take action. If things do not work, you learn from it and try again with the lessons you’ve acquired through experience. Every successful person or institution has had to evolve over time. You learn from your day-to-day activities and improve your ability to make better decisions. You must not cower away in fear of making mistakes. It is not healthy and it will stop you from making meaningful progress. The productive thing to do is to evaluate all the options in front of you, and make a decision. If it turns out to be a mistake, you can reverse it over time.

Knowledge makes the greatest difference between the people who succeed, and those that fail. The problem is that you don’t know what you don’t know. You are out there hustling all day, unaware of the true extent of your ignorance. You seem to be doing the right thing, but you are getting poor results. It doesn’t matter whether you are building out a divine idea or revelation. Without the right knowledge, nothing works. The knowledgeable person will achieve more than the person that relies only on working hard. You want to work with knowledge as hard as you can, for as long as you can. Seek knowledge from schools, books and mentors.

Your creativity is constrained by the amount of knowledge you have to work with. This is because you can not create out of ignorance. No matter how grand the vision from heaven seems, without a working knowledge in the physical realm, nothing ever gets done. Apostle Peter wrote, “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge” (2 Peter 1:5 ESV). Knowledge allows us to make the most of our efforts. Money, time, energy and other resources can be better deployed when there is knowledge. Without knowledge, you will perish.

Acquiring the right knowledge is a very important part of the process. And it is your job to seek out the knowledge you need. Your first instinct would be to seek out books, online courses and other information sources, but it could turn out to be a mistake. Remember that you don’t know what you don’t know. You need to have enough knowledge about something before you can evaluate your progress and determine what you need for the journey. This is why at the initial stage, you would need to learn from someone. You need someone that understands the terrain, and understands what you are trying to accomplish. This teacher, mentor or master can then guide you towards the right books, information and associations required to excel.

The best way to help people is to empower them to better take charge of their own economic affairs. When people do not feel like they are in charge of their economic affairs, they do not feel worthy of honour and respect. They lose their dignity. A self-respecting person would happily work and earn little, rather than embrace a flamboyant lifestyle funded by handouts. A handout; financial aid given out, does not stimulate creativity and inventiveness in the recipient. Without the combined input of the members of a society, there will be no collective growth and prosperity. Several people in the know have called for more investments and less handouts to impoverished African nations for example.

You cannot give people enough money for them to become wealthy. Wealth creation is tied to productivity and expressions of creativity. There is a passage from the Second Book of the Kings that shows Elisha helping an indebted widow to identify her assets and help herself out of poverty. No handouts required. He empowered her by the anointing to take charge of her economic affairs, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest” (2 Kings 4:7). There is no better way to assist another adult human than to thoughtfully consider how their productivity can be improved.

Tony Elumelu lights up the economy of his continent through a philanthropic venture in a manner that is worthy of emulation. Their organization provides training, mentorship and a little fund to empower people to start their own micro/small business. The programme rewards productivity. This is in sharp contrast to other poverty intervention programmes that are content to simply hand out money, food and drugs. Handouts are nothing more than temporary measures to ease the effects of poverty. It does not solve the problem itself. You have to remember that there will be no national economic growth unless people take responsibility and take charge of their own economic affairs.

The biggest problem with the world right now is the tendency to reframe everything as a money problem. Every obstacle, every hindrance to progress is thought of as lack of money. The idea being that with enough money, there is nothing to worry about. You would accomplish everything you want. However, money in itself does not solve problems. Money is, at best, a poor way to keep track of productivity and problem-solving skills. Money will not solve your problem, knowledge and discipline will. You must grow your mind enough to understand that you need knowledge more than you need money to accomplish your goals.

The biggest obstacle to building your business or organization is not funding, it is knowledge. Well funded organizations run out of money every day and close shop. People, companies and nations will perish for lack of knowledge. On the other hand, knowledge and wisdom will always find a way to keep going. The most resilient companies are knowledge-driven. You don’t solve problems by throwing money at it, you solve it by application of knowledge and wisdom. Your obsession with money is unhealthy and it will harm you much more than you realize. It is well known that the more knowledge, skills and information you have access to, the more you can do with little resources.

Money will not do for you what knowledge can do for you. Money cannot replace the need for discipline. The bible makes it clear that foolish people need knowledge and instruction. There is no biblical support for giving money to someone who lacks knowledge. Fools don’t need your money, they need knowledge. If you are young and foolish, seek the instructions of a father and the wise counsel only a mother can give. Knowledge will do more for you than money ever can. People with more resources than knowledge soon go bankrupt. You have to build with knowledge and discipline.

Ignorance and indiscipline cannot form the foundations of any enterprise that will stand the test of time. It takes more than passion, zeal, and having a vision to build something that will stand the test of time. As it is written in the Book of Proverbs, “Also it is not good for a person to be without knowledge, And he who hurries with his feet [acting impulsively and proceeding without caution or analyzing the consequences] sins (misses the mark)” (Proverbs 19:2 AMP). Knowledge plays a bigger role in creating a better world than one might consciously realize.

A lot of passionate and visionary people are building in ignorance, albeit unconsciously. They do not realize how much they do not know, or the extent of the knowledge gap they need to cover. If you want to build an effective organization, arm yourself with knowledge. The most effective and successful organizations in the world are knowledge-driven. Heads were turned in 2019 when CNN reported that Amazon had over a hundred economists that had doctorate degrees, working for them. You only need to take a look at open roles at top firms in your industry to see the kind of knowledge requirements they are demanding.

Do not build in ignorance and indiscipline. Some misguided Christians disdain knowledge, claiming insights are superior to knowledge. This is nonsense because insights are driven by knowledge. You cannot receive an insight that is higher than your realm of knowledge. Knowledge is the fuel, the raw material for insights and creativity. To avoid this pitfall, where you build in ignorance, you will require mentors. You don’t know what you don’t know. However, a mentor knows what you don’t know, and can point you in the right direction. You also want to develop a roster of credible, effective organizations in your industry that you can use as a benchmark for your work.

You will never live up to your creative potentials as long as you continue to think creativity is easy. This is because when you think something is easy, complacency sets in. You start to think you are good enough, and there is nothing to improve upon. Then it becomes hard to do groundbreaking work. This is something talented people struggle with. There is poor work ethic, and without the discipline to engage in productive labour, nothing of massive value is created. You must understand that creativity requires discipline, work ethic, and a commitment to lifelong learning.

The “work ethic” problem is due to the way creativity works. Joey Reiman wrote, “People always ask me, “How do you come up with those wild advertising ideas?” And I always say something very mystical, like I had a flash in the shower or God appeared. The fact is that my brain goes out to play. That’s what creativity is — intelligence having fun”. Creativity is intuitive and not logical. Creative insights come to us, it is hard to actively think and come up with ideas. The ideas usually turn up later on, and on their own. This supports the perception that it is all talent, and there is no need to labour. However, this is not true.

Creative ideas surface when you add knowledge, skills and information to a pure spirit untainted by greed and corruption. Your creative expressions are limited by the scope of your knowledge, skills and available information. When you refuse to put in the work because of perceived talent, you lose. Apostle Paul wrote, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10 ESV). The grace of God requires you to embrace productive labour. If you do not work with the creative grace available to you, it will not amount to anything at the end.