Seven Essentials to Creative Living

Creativity is the result of imagination that was put into action.

Heroes and heroines have left great landmarks as a result of their noble lives and gallant achievements. The ability to make prompt and proper changes in one’s thinking, plans, and methods for life-changing results and outcomes produces creativity.  While we often think of creativity mainly in the generation of new ideas, it is equally noticeable in our ability to solve problems of daily lives doing normal things outside the norm.

Our thought are vital to our creativity, what man’s thought can make up, man’s thought can liquidate. Though we hear too often that the voice of the people is the voice of God, you do not have to accept any thought merely because millions of people have thought it for thousands of years. Rather, never be afraid of starting a new train of thought, denying all negative symptoms, you would be appreciated if it yields new idea or creative thinking.

Men and women who had performed so wonderfully well are often seen as if they were created or born differently than others, possessed extraordinary perceptive, intuitive and creative powers not found in their contemporaries; thus their ability to excel in one area or another. Mozart, Albert Einstein, Galileo, Joan of Arc, Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Winston Churchill, Isaac Newton, etcetera, are regarded as men and women of extraordinary gifts and talents not common to others. This is not so.

Whether you realize it or not, you are wonderfully gifted with power to create, to shape and mold your life in ways so wonderful as to beat your imagination. You are equal to the best of men, and are capable of the greatest feat of any man. No matter your past failures and disappointments, the best of your achievement are yet to come, as you have only been limited by the smallness of your vision. Life is a petty thing unless there is pounding within it an enormous desire to extend its boundaries. We live in proportion to the extent to which we yearn to live more.

1.    The Essence of Life

 

Find out what God would have you do

And do that little well

For what is great and what is small

‘Tis only He can tell.  (Anonymous).

 

The whole essence of life and living must be clear to every person. We should have a raison deter for life and resources to live on.

Where do I come from?

Where am I heading to?

Why am I here?

Where do I go from here?

How do I get there?

What next after life and living?

Is death the end of it all, or is there really an eternity?

To address all these issues life must have a realistic meaning to me personally, and equally to you. We must each strive always to play our true and profitable part in the drama of life, not the second fiddle or the appendage.

2.    Believe

What do you believe in? Goddesses and gods abound in primitive cultures as well as in the municipalities. Ideas and philosophies are many in the realm of the intellectuals, the psychics, soothsayers, necromancers, occultists, pagans, religionists and Satanists alike.  Those so-called beliefs have not only failed people over and over, but lack the promise of the meaning and essence of life now and hereafter.

Lula disappeared amid a family feud in 1970, and was believed dead for 41 years. A mother of 14 children, Lula, due to some mental health problems, had left home before and returned. But she did not return after leaving in 1970. The family buried a human remain presented by the Police as Lula’s, and rested the case. Recent improvements in technology made DNA checks prove that the buried remains were not Lula’s. Further police investigations using her name and birth records led them to an 84-year old woman Florida resident, who turns out to be Lula.

You just have to believe in something stable, reliable, dependable, and trustworthy for inner confidence and general security. There is no god but God. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The Bible is the word of God that proves and confirm our faith in God with incontrovertible evidences and proven track record.  You should believe in God, His Christ, and His words as presented in the Bible.

3.  Hope For The Future

The cycle of life is woven around hope. Life after birth places our hope and confidence on parents and guardians. But, upon instant realization through growth, we seize the wheel of control with the hope to learn at school, to graduate from college, to pursue chosen career, to marry and settle into family relationship. We constantly keep alive our hope for the future with great and interesting expectations.  While you cannot tell with certainty how the future will play out, you are privileged to know God who holds and controls the future. Placing you future in His hands gives you a better edge than those who cast their lots in the hands of some armless deities and personal glory.

4.    Develop Your Gifts and Talents

Life holds a specific purpose for you whether you realize it or not, and the most important thing you can do is find this purpose to pursue it with passion for maximum output and creativity. There is always something you can do better than most people, you will do well to discover the worthwhile endeavor and happily throw  yourself into it for worthy and creative outcome. The Bible teaches how to find, develop and make best use of your endowed talents.

5.    The Laws of Life

There are laws that govern the way we live and the means to excel in every aspect of life. We follow the way to know the way. You must follow the rules and regulations, the modus operandi of your sphere of activity to excel in that area, otherwise you will just be beating about the bush. We marvel at the great accomplishments of the Apostles and early disciples after the death of Jesus Christ. Though untrained at the colleges of theology of the Pharisees and Sadducees, they excelled because they refused to deviate from the pattern of the Master Teacher.

6.    Character

Above every other quality and traits of a man, his character rings out loud and clear. A man should be trusted in very essential and basic aspects of life. Our integrity speaks volumes about our personality. You may be vilified or slandered by an envious public, but your impeccable character and uprightness will eventually give you the upper hand.

Though it is the lot of man to err, but there is a power greater than man’s that is ever ready to lift us up when we fall into the gutters of bad manners like the prodigal. A Lance Armstrong might have cheated the system, a Tiger Woods might not have been so faithful in family affairs, an Arnold Schwarzenegger might have failed to terminate some besetting sins, while many a Bernard Madoff still prowl Wall Street and Main Street for easy targets of their financial scams, there is One who, like the Father of the Prodigal, want us back home to Him much more than we desire. He places all the resources of Heaven at our disposal, saying “Come, for all things are made ready”. He says neither do I condemn thee, but go, and sin no more!

7.    The Final Reward

The UEFA Champions League is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world and the most prestigious club competition in European football. There are similar comparative categories in tennis, golf, basketball, athletics, and other sports and games. The Nobel Prize award is regarded as the peak of academic attainment and statesmanship. Nevertheless, there exists a final reward at the end of life for every man.

After making rich and profitable lives individually, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and a host of other business moguls created philanthropic institutions that live after their lives for the benefit of mankind. What creativity we hasten to say!

Your choice of the final reward in Heaven or hell is made by the kind of life you live on Earth. It is an open book quiz. How you measure up is determined by how truly creative you are here on Earth.   “Look! I am standing at the door and knocking. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he will eat with me.”

If you could imagine yourself in Heaven after this life, then put that imagination into action. That will be your greatest creativity!

June 12 – What Democracy Is!

That democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people, is well known as a panacea for good governance. It is a political idea or model of government where all citizens of specified voting age have the right of equal say in the determination and policy formulation of the state through representatives that were elected in free and fair elections.

Robert Browne and his Separatist congregation stood their ground and withdrew from the Church of England during the 16th and 17th centuries because of their dissatisfaction with the ritual used in worship and with the state control of religion in England. Facing many persecutions, a Browne splinter group fled in 1606 to Leiden in The Netherlands, and emigrated ten years later to America to become part of the Pilgrims – the Founding Fathers of the United States of America and her flourishing democracy.

Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, is highly acclaimed as one of the most influential and early writers on democracy and Western philosophy. In his work, Politics, Aristotle stated: It is often supposed that there is only one kind of democracy and one of oligarchy. But this is a mistake. “We should … say that democracy is the form of government where the free are rulers, and oligarchy in which the rich; it is only an accident that the free are the many and the rich are the few…. And yet oligarchy and democracy are not sufficiently distinguished merely by these two characteristics of wealth and freedom. Both of them contain many other elements … the government is not a democracy in which the freemen, being few, rule over the many who are not free … Neither is it a democracy when the rich have the government because they exceed in number…. But the form of government is a democracy when the free, who are also poor and the majority, govern, and an oligarchy when the rich and the noble govern, they being at the same time few in number.”

While democracy seems obscured throughout the entire history of Israel and Judah, God has been democratic right from creation – giving us the freedom to make personal choices between good and evil, weighing heavily on the desires of the majority to have manna, chicken, and water in the wilderness, and heeding to the voice of the Israelites to set up their kingdom.  Ancient Greece provided the then known world with the idea of democratic representation, whereas modern democracy developed in Britain and spread through the United States, Europe and eventually many other countries of the world, maintaining in-between the feudal system and aristocracy.

The Pilgrims, on their sail to the New World, were meant to disembark on the shores of Virginia, but were blown off course to settle in Plymouth, where they had no settlement grant. As part of the bid for settlement grant on this unexpected county, the Mayflower Compact was drawn, and all adult male passengers were compelled to sign it. The covenant was an informal agreement which stipulated that government was based on consent of the governed, an important precedent for the development of American democracy that established majority rule which remained till this day as a primary principle of the government in the United States.

The Pilgrims were guided not by science, philosophy, or “enlightenment”, but rather by the Words and Commandments of a God in whom “we trust”.

God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.

How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.

Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked. (Ps 82: 1 – 4).

 

These are the fundamental essence of true democracy in the plan of God, according to the Bible.

The Forefathers of American democratic republic held the view that democracy will not thrive without Biblical underpinning:

1. Makes us subscribe to the Ten Commandments as we seek happiness either in private life or in public service. “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” (Rev 22: 14).
2. We recognize our guilt and mistakes, confess, and forsake them, and move on in life.
3. We become spiritually minded through the power of the Holy Spirit, forbearing one another, especially despots and dictators, in our effort to transform them from dictatorship to democracy as practiced by Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and many other non-violent activists.  “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Rom 8: 6).
4. We move ahead in life in true and dedicated service to God and humanity, bound by duty and calling, passionately doing the noble things we know to do best.

Mark Zuckerberg has been able to turn his creativity around and become wealthy with a world-known and highly rated global corporation – Facebook. The meteoric success of this young man was neither hype nor a scam. It was genuine creativity implemented and applied in a conducive environment; supportive society and appreciative community.

Steve Wozniack and Steve Jobs had equally been transformed into instant millionaires and national heroes when they surprised the world in 1976 with their launch of Apple Computers. Apple Inc. is most probably the greatest corporate body on earth.

Robert Oppenhemmer was a young scholar when he headed the Manhattan Project, and developed the Atomic Bomb.

Andrew Carnegie came to America with his emigrating parents and began life in the cotton industry as a child laborer. But with vision and boundless opportunities in the New World, for those who would, he became one of the richest men ever.

Benjamin Franklin was deceived into London, but he caught his teeth in the printing trade on the streets of London, and went back to America to turn disappointments into opportunities, caught a niche for himself, and became a great American.

The list is without an end.

America is strong because she put the interest of her citizens as priority. There is always a payback according to the Golden Rule. Opportunities abound in America in cash and in kind for those who are willing to draw from the ken and improve their lot. America encourages, appreciates, and rewards creativity and ingenuity. No wonder she draws unto herself the best from all nations.

Nigerians are exceptionally intelligent and hard-working people. The country is extraordinarily well blessed with talented people and vast natural and mineral resources. Enormous wealth was made from the extraction, refining, and exportation of crude oil, but very little benefit to the masses, the glaring symptoms of an oligarchy.

President Barrack Obama, General Martin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and a long list of Federal Executive Secretaries, Senators and Congressmen, governors, state officials, mayors and other top place holders in public and private practice who are African-Americans is pointers and testimonies of the endurance of African-Americans to seek and fight for their right. The Supreme Court in March 1858 gave a landmark judgment in which Chief Justice R. B. Taney declared that the African-Americans were not citizens of the U.S. and should not derive any right from the constitution of The United States. But 150 years after this pathetic judicial denial of the black people, an African-American was elected, and later re-elected into the White House in very free and fair elections, riding on the crest of the votes of both white and colored electorates that adjudged Barack Obama credible enough to lead America, and the world.

Russia, under Vladimir Putin, is an oligarchy. China is ruled by the communist party. Cuba is a famous socialist enclave of the Castros. North Korea is the current famed example of a nation where all citizens surrender their fundamental rights to one single family, out of fear and cowardice. To make Nigeria a truly democratic republic goes beyond  parades and holidays on June 12, but rather:

• to work very hard and make all eligible voters register to vote
• to actually make all credible voters vote their conscience and candidates in every election within their constituencies
• that all votes must count and be correctly counted in free and fair elections
• prayerfully uphold the faith that God help Nigeria in her noble search for credible leadership.

This is what democracy is!!!