PERSONAL GROWTH THROUGH SERVICE BY LUCKY EGEDE

INTRODUCTION:

One innate quality of everything that has life is the propensity to grow and increase. For us humans, it is natural to grow in body size and sometimes we even grow more than we have desired and begin to watch our weights. The growth we are here to discuss is not the physical increase in size but of the attainment of significance or relevance.

We all desire to be important and when people are called to the high table, everyone would naturally wish to be the one being so recognised but how do we become people of significance?

Why are so many people never significant in any gathering? Even some parents are not significant in the lives of their own children.

Some people are not able to attain significance even in their immediate family gathering.

Today we are set to tell you that you are all created for significance and it has to be attained by all who desire it.

2          COMMUNAL LIVING

GOD said “it is not good for man that he should be alone”. We are created for communal living. You cannot amount to anything or find significance all by yourself. Any community that stays by itself and does not receive visitors and strangers from various other places will continue to be a village with no significant development. The value of property will continue to be low and level of knowledge will be limited.

We must open up our community to receive people from all over the world which is a service we can render as a people and allow interaction with various civilisations. On this note, we will all remember our great father Late Dr. George Orewa of blessed memory and his effort at opening up our community to investors from other communities and other ethnic nationalities in addition to his establishing his own production line. People may have felt that he was seizing farm lands but we know today that the value of land, the planning and creation of streets in Ewuru were all his idea. He was a significant person in the lives of us all.

The Orthopaedic hospital is a significant project and it is used to describe Ewuru in the midst of other communities. It has attracted people of various languages and culture. Our fathers that have kept it running are significant persons.

Significant persons live for others and the moment you live for yourself alone, you cannot become significant. Nobody will remember you for the type of car you drove or the food you ate or the clothes you wore or the number of wives you married. You are only as important as what you did for others.

These are services that will be remembered long after the person that rendered the services have gone to be with the LORD.

3. SURVIVAL MODE.

Self-defence is a natural course for every living person. Why is this man telling us how to serve others when we are looking for how to survive?

It is natural to start from survival mode. It was Richard Branson that said, the first goal of every business founder is to pay his bills. The talk of vision and mission as we know it from the business schools is only a line of thought that are invented by those who have eaten are full.

There is nothing wrong with starting on survival mode but there is everything wrong with dying on survival mode. We start from how to pay our bills until we get to that point in our lives and we need to get there quickly where we make two lists for consideration on daily basis.

If you live your life everyday counting what you do not have, it is most likely that person will die a miserable person.

The first list to write is called the gratitude list. Every morning, thank God for the opportunity to see the brightness of a new day. It reminds us that our eyes are still in place and functional. Thank God for the roof over your head, you are not homeless. You possibly have access to breakfast, you have wife or husband, brothers and sisters, a community of people who know and believe in you, a church family for fellowship, shoulder to lean on when you cry and people to laugh with when you are glad. You are able to stand on your legs. You are not crippled.

All of these are not to say that you do not have needs. Write a list of needs you think you have but you can ignore the needs and look for people who do not have what you have. Try to share what you have with a heart of gratitude, it will amaze you how your need list will start fading away and the items there will join your gratitude list and this works so well. Remember, you are only as important as what you do for others.

4. BECOMING FINANCIALLY SIGNIFICANT

The order of God for financial significance is not too different.

2. TRAIN YOUR MIND. “Do not conform to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Roms 12:2. It has been said that black people are the poorest people all over the world and the Jews are the richest people wherever they are found. It follows that there is a pattern for the Jewish world and a pattern for the blacks. The Jews were in the wilderness for 40 years wearing the same sandals and garment and they never bothered about what was reigning. That is a pattern and they have not changed it. The blacks on the other hand are controlled by their appetite. It is the latest, this is reigning, that is old fashioned and we pride ourselves in our ability to consume more than our neighbour. We are not celebrated for the number of patents and royalties but for the number of wives, cars, houses and things that add nothing to anybody. This path of living keeps generations on the dark road and far from light. The mould can be broken and we that sing Abraham’s blessings are mine can take on the pattern of the children of Abraham. Some of us have watched the raid at Entebe when Idi Amin seized a few Israelites and held them hostage. In a ninety minutes raid, the Jews staked their all to get their brothers and sisters released. That is a pattern. Remember always, you cannot be more significant than what you do for others.

28. WORK HARD. I found that the first thing God gave man was work. When God created man, he did not leave the man to go in search of blessings. That has not changed. God blessed man Gen 1:28. Blessing is your natural property. Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue everything, live in dominion. And in Gen 2:8, God planted a garden. This is to teach us that work is not a sin. God worked, he planted a garden and in Gen 2:15, God handed over the garden, and told the man, tend the garden. It must not be overgrown with weeds. Keep it and you will always have enough to eat and to give away.

Now, we can each ask ourselves. How well have I kept my garden?

In Prov. 24:30-34 the bible says, I went by the field of a lazy man and of a man devoid of understanding, and there it was all overgrown with thorns; its surface was covered with nettles; its stone wall was broken down. When I saw it; I considered it well; I looked on it and received instructions: a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, so shall your poverty come like a prowler and your need like an armed man”.

SEE ALSO: RE-BUILDING OF UWEIFO PRIMARY SCHOOL, DIVINE PROJECT

iii.        LEARN TO SAVE: Prov. 21:20 says there is desirable treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise. But a foolish man squanders it. And in Prov. 6:6-8, God commands us to go learn the ways of the ant, we can learn wisdom from ant that gathers in dry season what it will eat in rainy season. When you earn, keep some away. It is a man that has something kept away as savings that can generate investment ideas. If you are overwhelmed by your needs, you will never come across investment idea, your mind can’t cultivate one.

I will also say at this point that some people who have more ideas than their money can sponsor (which is usually the lot of the rich who are always going to the bank to borrow deposits kept for safe keeping by the poor) will walk up to a man with savings and say, let us partner on this business. Nobody will share idea with a man that is forever looking for money to meet his needs.

1. INVEST. Gen. 8:20 says “as long as the earth remains, seed time and harvest time will not cease”. It is as sure as day and night. There is always a time of harvest for everyone who invests.

Many people look at the investment climate and complain, no light, roads are bad and more. Eccl. 11:4 says “he who observes the wind will not sow and he who observes the cloud will not reap. It continues in verse 6 with: in the morning sow your seeds and in the evening do not withhold your hands. There is nothing like wrong environment or wrong timing whether it is morning or evening. You all saw Samankwe start Supermarket at Agbor and almost bought off the whole lands at Agbor. If a Supermarket in Lagos comes here to donate a school, we should not say because they are in Lagos. The same business is thriving at Agbor.

1. IDENTIFYING INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES.

I have seen many people whine and grumble and murmur about lack of investment opportunities around them and they know all the problems in their environment. No light, school system is bad, medical facilities are not working, hospitals are without drugs, leaders are a total mess etc.

My question is, do you know how many business opportunities you have just mentioned in one sitting?

If you can identify a problem, go and solve it and that is your business. Every business is a solution to an identified problem. Every man that identifies a problem has a business that he can chose to do or grumble about. The unfortunate thing is that nobody remembers grumblers. Only those who solve problems are remembered. God even killed people in the bible for grumbling. 1 Cor. 10:10.

WORLD CLASS EXAMPLES

“There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist another human being – to help someone succeed” – Alan Loy McGinnis

“It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives. Nor the amount of money one has in the bank that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.” – George Washington Carver.

PURPOSEFUL GOD.

Vain pursuit of prosperity in the understanding that it will enhance personal comfort will not bring prosperity. Pursue prosperity in the understanding that it will enhance your capacity to help others and God will take you over. It has always worked that way.

Let us look at those who made wealth and how they got there:

1. Google Set out on a mission to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
2. Apple – Support and contribute to innovation for competitive advantage.
3. Nike – To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.
4. Microsoft Mission – Empower every person and every organisation in the planet to achieve more.
5. Amazon – To be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

You will see from these that all these organisations set out to solve problems and to assist humanity. If we tow that line, we will be flowing with God and we will become persons that magnet prosperity.

It is not what a lazy man can pursue because it is highly inconveniencing to try and help people. If we must prosper, that is the only way to go under God.