Be Hungry

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
-James 2:17-

My entire life I’ve made excuses and blamed person after person for my shortcomings while all the while I was sole source of my own pain and misfortune. The only thing or person that was holding back was me. Truth be told, I allowed my fear of failure outweigh my desire to succeed. I blamed my lack of conviction and focus, inability to follow through, and tendency for procrastination on everyone but the man in the mirror.
It has been said that courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to feel fear and do it anyway. I’ve spent a large portion of my life stuck in the paralysis of analysis as opposed to having the courage to fulfill God’s true purpose for my life.
Through the encouragement of my biological and church families I have discovered the courage and intestinal fortitude to move forward with the vision God has given me to share my life experiences with the world.
If not for their love and actions I wouldn’t be here today, and the dreams God has given me would have died with me. It has been said that the saddest thing is for a man to be lying on his death bed with all his hopes, ideas, and dreams standing around him saying, “We were given to you, only you could have given us life, but because you failed to do so, we must die with you.” Miles Munroe said, “the richest place in the world is not the diamond mines in Africa, it’s the graveyard, because there you will find books never written, dreams never fulfilled, etc. “
Whatever your dreams are, whatever your goals are, know this. You are greater than you think you are. Whatever you are seeking is also seeking you. Don’t hesitate any longer. Step out on faith and let God turn your actions into your reality. Give Him your little portion and watch Him multiply it into His abundance.

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super athletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Will

You will be what you will to be;
Let failure find its false content
In that poor word “environment,”
But spirit scorns it, and is free.
It masters time, it conquers space,
It cowes that boastful trickster Chance,
And bids the tyrant Circumstance
Uncrown and fill a servant’s place.
The human Will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless Soul,
Can hew the way to any goal,
Though walls of granite intervene.
Be not impatient in delay,
But wait as one who understands;
When spirit rises and commands,
The gods are ready to obey.
The river seeking for the sea
Confronts the dam and precipice,
Yet knows it cannot fail or miss;
You will be what you will to be!

Poems of Power by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Chicago : W. B. Conkey, 1902.

Go For It

“If you want a thing bad enough to go out
and
fight for it,
to work day and night for it,
to give up your time, your peace and your sleep for it…
if all that you dream and scheme is about it,
and life seems useless and worthless without it…
if you’d gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it
and lose all your terror of the opposition for it…
if you simply go after that thing you want
with all of your capacity, strength and sagacity,
faith, hope and confidence and stern pertinacity…
if neither cold, poverty, famine, nor gout,
sickness nor pain, of body and brain,
can keep you away from the thing that you want…
if dogged and grim you beseech and beset it,
with the help of God, you will get it!”
—Les Brown