Exploit opportunities to improve yourself and society

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 06:19:25 +0000

This world is full of career and life goals. It also has challenges. Different people struggle to achieve their career and life goals. Some people also pray hard to God to bless them with what they want in their lives; especially in marriages, their career choices or in successful and profitable businesses.

But rarely do most of us know and appreciate that the prayers which we did many or some few years ago or those which we continually do have now been answered. As a result, some people turn down some blessings or opportunities from God when they come to them.

Look at some of the single ladies who pray hard in different churches; asking God to bless them with Mr Right. When a Mr Right comes to them, they are the first ones to turn him down for whatever reasons. Some people hunt jobs for months; if not years. But when a job opportunity comes to them, they turn down the offer of that job on various reasons.

Low monthly salary, poor conditions of service, bad employers are among all sorts of excuses. But their friends are getting married or are being employed by the same men or the same employers some ladies or some job hunters turn down respectively. Why ask God for a specific blessing if when it comes you turn it down?

Look! Almost every weekend, we see some couples wedding. Why not you? Are your standards too high for all men or for all ladies? Every day, some people are being employed. People who have humbled themselves to get any job that can help them put food on the table are working in different jobs or are doing some businesses. If you are a job hunter, are your qualifications, experience and skills too high for almost all the employers in Zambia?

Someone is saying: ‘One’s values and principles guide him or her to accept or turn down some offers that come to him or her.’

Fine. But how can one know that this opportunity is a blessing from God or not for one to embrace it or not? One needs to be born again to effectively and correctly evaluate whether an opportunity is worth accepting or not. Merely turning down opportunities or blessings; thinking that they are full of demons might not help us in life. We need more prayers for us to know which opportunity is a blessing from God and which one is demonic!

Look at many opportunities that our country offers. We have vast fertile land. We have many water bodies almost in all the ten (10) provinces of this beautiful country. Wildlife; including elephants, lions, zebras, hippos and giraffes among others are part of our beautiful Zambia. Fish in the Zambezi and in Luangwa rivers are reportedly almost depleted while demand for fresh and dry fish in Zambia is growing at an increasing rate.

With favourable rainfall patterns, our country is now experiencing some floods. All such are opportunities for youths and the elderly people to harvest such water for use in dry seasons. But as usual, we turn down such blessings thinking that they are curses; and not blessings from God which we should embrace.

With such unwillingness to accept things that we ask from God; the Creator, who knows, God might just be laughing at us; instead of being annoying with us for showing that we are fooling him in our requests which when God gives us, we reject such blessings.

Impression of setting God can be in many ways. Look at how some politicians have been aspiring for high positions for this country. Some of them have taken many years without success to be in State House.

But analysing some history, one discovers that some of these politicians have been invited to join successive ruling parties before. Some previous and some current opposition leaders were even promised good positions in government if they joined some previous or current ruling party.

Look around. You might find some current opposition leaders who were asked to form a political alliance with a certain ruling or fellow opposition party; but they rejected such an offer or opportunity.

Again, someone is saying values and principles can make one accept or turn down some offers. Another reader is saying, some offers are no genuine; adding that they can ruin one’s political career or one’s integrity.

You might be right. But some people feel that they are so pure to join some politicians with perceived ‘dirty’ politics. Ooh! Who is pure on Earth? While they pride on their perceived purity, time is going for them to achieve what they want in politics.

Yes. Someone is saying some opposition leaders cannot join a ruling or any opposition party because their sponsors might stop funding them. Someone is also adding that some political leaders are on sponsorship to lead a party until they succeed being a Head of State; and if they leave their party the way some did, such funding from within or outside Zambia might stop flowing to them. To stop receiving such funding from their well-wishers is perceived to be a big disadvantage to them.

Okay. But time is passing. Age is catching up with such politicians. Is it a form of employment that as long as one is eating properly from such a funding, one should remain in opposition? Can’t one also eat properly if one joins a certain political party; especially a ruling party; and when such a person is given a good position, can’t he or she have good ‘milile’ the way she or he was doing when he or she was leading his or her own party?

This is where critical thinking is also required to evaluate the prons or cons of either continuing running one’s political party or joining another party where one might harvest a good salary with more fringe benefits than leading his or her own party.

But sometimes when your own party doesn’t seem to be very promising to give you what you want either because majority of the electorate don’t vote for you or when some members of your party don’t favour your leadership, this can yield regrets for not accepting the previous offer to join another party. One needs to seek guidance from God on which one to choose.

But some politicians have accepted to work with other political parties for their political career goals to be realised; and in the process also to serve majority Zambians. Some politicians have gone back to their respective former parties as a realisation that they had rejected a blessing from God.

From such a background, like many others have done, one cannot be surprised to learn, for example, that former republican vice president, Dr guy Scot has re-joined the Patriotic Front to serve Zambians better.

This is why in one of the previous articles under this column, this writer argued that we are a product of our own choices. No one can blame anyone for what we are now. We chose to be what we are now. Whether we are still single, jobless or still in opposition party or some of our political party members want us out of our current political position, all such are what we were waiting for. We reap what we sow.

We have to blame ourselves for every decision we make; especially if it is against God’s will.

God cannot bring his blessings to us in a physical state (which he isn’t) for us to believe that this is a genuine blessing from God. Everything depends on faith. If one has genuine faith in God, one will be able to know whether an opportunity is genuine or not.

Knowing that the opportunity was genuine from God, Edgar Chagwa Lungu accepted being anointed to take over from ‘Man of Action’, the former republican president, Michael Sata. Because he exploited the opportunity as a blessing from God, Edgar Chagwa Lungu is now ‘His Excellency, The Republican President of Zambia’.

Could it be that someone of us don’t see and exploit such opportunities because God doesn’t guide us accordingly for he knows that if we are in the political positions we aspire for, we might be selfish and greedy to the disadvantage of many sections of our society?

Therefore, let’s keep on praying to God to guide us to be able to assess whether opportunities which will be coming to us in the near future will be genuine or not for us to make right decisions in accepting or rejecting them.

God is love. The more we love; and demonstrate that we love our friends regardless of the socio-cultural, economic or political position they have, the more we will be able to judge whether opportunities which come to us are genuinely from God or not. Let’s exploit opportunities around us.

The author is a lecturer in Journalism and Mass Communication. He is also a trainer in Public Relations (PR) and in Local Governance.

For ideas, comments and details, contact:

Cell: 0977/0967 450151

E-mail: sycoraxtndhlovu@yahoo.co.uk