In this day and age many if not all of us seek for greatness in our way or another. That is what we were born for and it is our heritage from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. However, there is a price that many of us if not strategic, may fail to pay and thus miss that moment. It is easy to flourish when all around you is flourishing. However, when so much around you is not only speaking but prophesying gloom and doom, when all around you is sinking, staying afloat is an act of boldness, determination and focus. It requires a positive mindset and the capacity to say yes, when many are saying, no. It takes character to look for a pearl trampled down in the mud if not dung. It is character at its best.
I draw lessons from Isaiah as he explains his experience in that year when King Uzziah of Israel died. I am imagining what Israel was like when King was pronounced dead. The great mourning and a sense of hopelessness. Another king had fallen, a great king he was though later succumbed to leprosy due to pride. What kind of talk proceeded from the lips of many?
For Isaiah, the fall of a great king marked a new era in life. It is recorded that ‘in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw that Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. His lips were touched with a coal of fire and cleansed from impurity. The man was commissioned for greater happenings. Indeed, it was a year of both transformation and definition of purpose. So to him, reference to this king’s death filled his life with pleasurable memories.
You and I have a lot to learn from Isaiah in this year which will forever be remembered as one when a pandemic ravaged the whole world. A year when the world is fighting this invisible army only to register many causalities with more expected in various dimensions unless heaven intervenes. In Uganda cases of death are still few, but the loss is already too big in other aspects of life. Many of our daughters have conceived and may never go back to school. For them this pandemic represents untimely motherhood and a destiny redefined. Some young men will become fathers for the first time. Others due to idleness have for the first time used drugs. Gender based violence has hit record high with families falling apart not to mention the rampant suicide. Some businesses will never resurrect while on the contrary for some people this is a foundation of the desired, dreamt of future. Some businesses have been birthed, connections made, more knowledge acquired coupled with a thousand ideas of minting money.
You can be like Isaiah and seize an opportunity amidst fear, death and for some hopelessness. Set aside time to learn a new skill, make new friends, mend fences learn a new language, think of a business engagement, get married, buy land. The list is endless. You and I may not have the power to reverse what has gone wrong but we have powers to decide how to swim in this tide. Do not sink with the rest. Turn the 2019 pandemic into a treasured memory. The secret is choosing the right people to hang out with, using your time in the most profitable way possible and always looking at the bright side of life.
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