“If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”
Thomas Alva Edison, US inventor (1847 - 1931)
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This is why I remind you to keep using the gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. Now let it grow, as a small flame grows into a fire.
2 Timothy 1:6 NCV
What Have You In Yourself?
It is what you are, what you have in you that counts. It is the undeveloped resources in your mind, in your spirit, in that inward man that counts.
It is the developing of the Writer, the Thinker, the Teacher, the Inventor, the Speaker, the Leader, the Business Manager that is hidden deep in you that is important.
I venture that every one of you who reads this have in you one of these abilities. There may be an untrained voice, untrained musical abilities lying hidden under the careless, thoughtless exterior.
Let us go down with a flashlight and look over the untouched treasures that are stored away inside, that have never been touched, never been used. Then let us bring the thing up that we find and make it worthwhile; giving it a commercial value.
Remember that everything that goes towards making you a success is inside of you. The thing that makes opportunities, that makes money, that creates new things, that brings together the things that others have created but were unable to utilize, is inside of you.
Find it and make it work! That ability is there. No one else can train it. No one else can develop it. Someone else may set it on fire, but you can quench it by refusing to act. Remember the maxim, “use it or lose it.” You must put yourself on a mental diet, not a diet of idle dreams or fancies, but a diet of real mental work. Put your best into every day. Make up your day of saved moments.
There is a goldmine hidden in every life. Nature never made a failure. There is no accident in God. Every man has success hidden in his soul. Failure comes because we never sought they hidden treasure. Failure comes because we tried to find it somewhere else. You can't find it anywhere else. It’s in you! Success, victory, achievement are in you. The exceptional people are those who develop what is within them.
Genius has grown up to weed about it, just because they did not develop the things they had. I know it is hard work but you will learn to love hard work. There are no great gold nuggets lying on top of the earth now. You have to go down into the earth for them. Dig and dig until you have conquered.
You want the applause of the world? You want to make money to buy the good material things to enjoy? You want to find success and fulfill destiny? Then, stay awake! Go find that hidden place in your own nature.
A story was told of a father who was dying. He had two sons. The boys had always felt that he had gold that he had hidden away somewhere. He had never been a strong, healthy man, so his farm was not developed. Back of the house was ten acres of stump land. When he was dying he said, “The slump lot.” Again and again he said, “the stump lot”
As soon as the funeral was over, the boys said, “The gold is out in the slump lot.” How feverishly they worked. They tore up every inch of it. But they found no gold. The older one said, “We have the land in good condition, let’s put in corn.” In the autumn, they found in the ripened corn the gold.
You have a slump lot in you –your potentials, talents, gifts, passions, interests… Dig it up, clean it up, and you will find the gold in it.
God bless you.
