December | 2011 | To speak of Influence.......

If you look at the lives of people like Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Theresa, or any other great men or women in history. You’ll notice that their lives weren’t all that perfect.

They lived.

Made mistakes.

Made even more mistakes.

BUT! They ended up changing the world…. because:

They did the right thing, even when everything around them went wrong.

This is what we would call, a “Defining Moment”.

And history is made.

A defining moment NEVER comes from a situation where there is no conflict. It stands out like neon on asphalt on a moonless night. They present themselves clearly and change their environment.

The sad thing is that most of us wait for a conflict-free moment…. which… surprise, surprise! Never comes….

Then we (and I’m using the pronoun “we” for a reason) conclude that it wasn’t meant to be, life is unfair, and we can do nothing about it.

None of the above are true, though.

We have no reason to condemn ourselves to self-pity. We were crafted for greatness, and the moment we realise that, we can stop pitying ourselves and lead wonderful lives filled with defining moments.

In Daniel (from the Bible)’s time, their entire NATION was captured. It was during this time when their captor’s asked them to sing one of their famous songs of joy and hope… but then the people responded “How can we sing in a foreign land?”

I did a little bit of research, and it turns out that the people who refused to sing in captivity didn’t even sing when they were free… in fact, they just complained!

If we are going to wait for good surroundings, it’s like saying you’ll take medication and treatment when you’re healthy.

There will always be negative situations in life… but we create defining moments by acting regardless.

Did you know that there were more deaths and disasters during the original Christmas season than any other holiday season. It got so bad that most (but not all, mind you) contemporary writers didn’t even mention small matters like mass murders or civil wars and uprisings… and yet God deemed it a time of Joy and Hope… talk about anti-climax.