• Fear not that you night fail…Fear rather that you might never succeed if you never dare to try.
• Fear not that might make a mistake believing in your dream…Fear rather that if you don’t go for it you might stand before God and He’ll tell you that you could have succeeded if you had more faith.
• Fear not that if it doesn’t work out you’ll be embarrassed…Fear rather that if you don’t try that time will only prove you could have succeeded! The saddest words of pen and tongue are these: “It might have been.”
• Fear not that you might fail…Fear rather that you will never succeed if you don’t start taking risks.
• Fear not that you might be hurt…Fear rather that you might never grow if you keep waiting for painless success.
• Fear not that might love and lose…Fear rather that you might never love at all.
• Fear not that others might laugh at your mistakes…Fear rather that God will say to you, “O you of little faith.”
• Fear not that you might fall again…Fear rather that you might have might it the next time you’d only tried once more and given it all you had.
• Failure doesn’t mean you were dumb to try; it means you had courage to explore and experiment to see what would work and what would not. Failure doesn’t mean you don’t know how to make decisions; it just means you have to make another decision. You can overcome the fear of failure when you re-define failure that word:
• Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure…It does mean you haven’t succeeded yet.
• Failure doesn’t mean you can accomplished nothing…It does mean you have learned something.
• Failure doesn’t mean you have been a fool…It does mean you had a lot of faith.
• Failure doesn’t mean you’ve been disgraced…It does mean you were willing to try.
• Failure doesn’t mean you don’t have it…It does mean you have to do something in a different way.
• Failure doesn’t mean you are inferior…It does mean you are not perfect.
• Failure doesn’t mean you’ve wasted your life…It does mean you have a reason to start afresh.
• Failure doesn’t mean you should give up…It does mean you must try harder.
• Failure doesn’t mean you’ll never make it…It does mean it will take a little longer.
• Failure doesn’t mean God has abandoned you…It does mean God has a better idea!
• Failure doesn’t mean you’re finished…It does mean you have a chance to try something new.

…Failure Is Never Final

Taken from Robert H. Schuller’s,

“Success Is Never Ending; Failure Is Never Final”

Chap. 3 pp 57-58

I read what about to tell you from Robert H. Schuller’s book, ‘Success Is Never Ending; Failure is Never Final’. They are very important questions you need to ask yourself if you want to make it to the top because that is what the risk takers and opportunity takers think about and answer. It will make you see things clearly.

Are you ready? Come on! Relax I’m going to tell you anyways otherwise I wouldn’t write this. Ok! Ok! I’ll quit playing already.

• What dreams would you be setting for yourself if you knew you could not fail?
• What goals would you have on the drawing board if you had unlimited financial resources?
• What plans would you be making if you knew you could ‘pull them off’?
• What projects would you be launching if you had the wisdom to solve any problem and the power to sweep all obstacles out of your way?
• What exciting work would you be engaged in today if you could acquire the skill to sell your ideas to powerful people?

Extract from “Robert H. Schuller’s  “Success Is Never Ending: Failure Is Never Final

Chapter 3 pp.47

The answers you write down here are your true dreams you want to accomplish if there’s no such thing as failure; you had unlimited resources; you could just make it happen; there are no obstacles; sell your ideas and make it…those dreams are what you truly want. I’m sure you realize that and that’s nothing new I’m telling you but what you need to know is to close your mind to failure. See it as another means that didn’t work previously and it doesn’t matter how many times, YOU NEED TO GET BACK AT IT. Guess what? Anybody who doesn’t work hard for anything they have will lose it in the long run if they don’t work hard enough to keep it. In other words it is never by chance or by luck that people are successful. Never think that way!

You think the risk-takers and the people that make it and all the big names don’t know there’s something called failure? They do know!!! They just close their minds to ‘it won’t work’ and go ahead and make those plans and meet those people and refuse to see blockades as obstacles. It’s like, where you and I see a wall (obstacle) and can’t go through because there’s no way, they close their eyes and walk through as if there’s no wall and we sit back and look at them later and call them the big-shots. What the difference between you and them? They ignore and overlook the negative thinkers, the failure talk and believe that nothing is impossible.

What? You think your dream and plans are way over your head. Let me tell you something. The world has come from an era where people thought the world was flat, building skyscrapers was inconceivable, going out in space was fiction, walking on the moon was a fairytale, making vaccines for certain diseases couldn’t happen, producing a machine that can store, organize and reproduce information like the computer was a talk from a different planet to every idea conceive is possible on the planet earth.

 Pal, day in and day out impossibilities are made possible on this very earth where people didn’t believe you could talk and at the same time see a person who lives far from you when the telephone was discovered. If there’s one thing the world has taught me all these years is never say something is impossible because you would go to bed one day and wake up the next and it has happened. That’s what the successful believe and do that we don’t and never believe. Do you want to be left out because of unbelief or doubt?

Look let’s do this together, my dream to be a bestseller in Africa (where people don’t read and producing over millions of copies of each book meaning that I have to realize the idea I have of inculcating the desire in blacks to read first) & then beyond. I have at the back of my mind that I can’t fail and I can’t see any obstacle. Are you with me? Then let’s go!

           I have been a little off the blog these days. I’m very sorry but I had no idea that university pressure could really put me off certain things. Now that I’m about settled a bit, I’m sure I’ll be a bit into the blog more. Some thing happened a fortnight ago. I know, I know, I should have told you earlier, but you know why? University pressure, jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesss! You made me say it again. The more I say it, the more I feel it all around me, I know it is high time I stop it. I have now… Sooooo.. a fortnight ago, I met a senior back in senior high, now he’s in his third year here. It was strange after I thought about the whole thing that happened.

            I had for that week thought about the idea of joining the debate team. Maybe I should explain myself better. The idea had crossed my mind, maybe like twice, I didn’t really consider it, besides I don’t remember the last or first time I debated formally. I know it is not shocking…. But I love to debate; the word is, debate and not fight. I hate the latter. Then this guy, now I know he is the president of the Debate Team for the University. It didn’t surprise me at all, if my memory is still good I think he was a president back in senior high. He meets me and recalls my face and then straight away he asked me whether I had written my name to join the debate team. Ohh Blimey! That was a direct question, as if the guy knew I could debate when I myself didn’t really know I could do that. I said it crossed my mind, I didn’t really consider it. Guess what I said, “I told him I was still considering it.” You know I didn’t want to give false hopes. The guy then agreed to collect my number. NO he didn’t agree, he collected my number and then he said he will contact me to inform me on issues.

            Fine I thought that would be the end of that story, but on Wednesday I received a text message from him, going to members of all the debaters on campus and of course “new ones” like myself for a meeting on Friday. I said new ones though I haven’t said I agreed to join the team, I know okay. Sometimes I realize that certain things are not my decision to make. It was inevitable; call it an act of God. I remember praying a prayer before to God when I got to this University that God should direct me to where he wants me to go, because I don’t know anything, He alone knows my end. Still think it was my decision to make. Boy! Can’t you see that facts! Fine read again…   

              The meeting went well; I met other “new ones” who were interested in joining the debate team. Then guess what it was thrown in my face? There was going to be a Fresher’s’ Debate, where all freshers could be given a general motion and balloting would be made, to decide whether you would speak for or against the motion. I hadn’t taken part in a formal debate before, and the first time I join a debate team, they already expect me to debate. Wow! Other people came to this campus with the background and experience in debating, I had nothing, I had only read a few books on public speaking which I won as a price for being the overall best senior high student in General Arts. Of course I had seen debate being held, but that didn’t guarantee I could debate or could it? Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

                 You know the thrill and excitement, maybe nervousness too… of this whole Fresher’s Debate; during the balloting I picked the paper which said, “Speaker 1, FOR”. I couldn’t believe with all the mind battles on me not debating before I was to be the First Speaker out of sixteen, I think. I told myself and certainly my girlfriend and a few group of people that, I love challenges and risks. Well, Edwin this was one stirring at me right in the face where all logic could prove that things weren’t going my way. Guess what? Naaaaaaaaah… you were wrong in guessing, we haven’t had the debate yet so I can’t tell you who won. The thing is the first three people who score high points would be made a part of the university’s core debate team. I have done my research extensively. Even if I hadn’t participated in a debate before, I couldn’t mess this one up. Sources and talks from my dad, through the internet, through personal experiences, this one is certainly going to go my way, what else is missing? Tell me… yeah, yeah I know experience. You shouldn’t shout at it all over in my face like that. I’m going to make this happen. Besides, I didn’t make the call to join the team. God did.

                  Well the debate is on Friday, I’d tell you the results afterwards. If you are interested in the debate motion, it is. “Post-election violence, a near possibility in Ghana.” They initially gave us 7 minutes, now they are saying 5 minutes. What the heck? This is still going good for me. I don’t believe in luck, wish me all the best!!!

You know what’s strange in this life? “I don’t know,” would be the answer my girlfriend would have told you. As I sit here on a my room mates bed. I always wonder what goes on around us humans or man. We always seems to never get satisfy with where we are. You know what I love that about we humans. We always strive to know more around us, to do more, want more. Just a few days ago, I remember my lecturer sharing a story saying that, have you seen a man who will tell you that give me a bicycle and everything would be alright with me. Have you? Yea, maybe it’s possible; even you have sometimes thought that when you had that dress or fancy gadget all will be alright. Right? Just like in the case with my lecturer’s story, that man would sooner or later get tired of that bicycle, and want a motor, for whatever reason he may have. Then the motor turns into a car, maybe it won’t get to owning a personal jet but lets stop at the car for a moment, even with your dad, he loves to get a brand new car. Then some years later he loves the one that came out and won’t mind getting it, if he could. Admit it, even my dad won’t mind having a new car, come on! If you had the resources and all other factors ok, I’m not saying go and steal. No way! If you had the money, you won’t settle for that old gadget.

           You think you don’t want more in this life. Boy! Sit right there! I’m going to… You know why there’s the saying, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” It is to show you that even those you have are getting more. I read Donald Trump’s “How To Get Rich” and you know one lesson I learnt, the man is never satisfied just like all of us. Come on why you do have the aim and that dream and that goal. As different as it may be from mine, we all want to be better people than before whether in search of wealth, personal freedom, happiness, success…BETTER than BEFORE.

             Has there been any news that all the wealthy men of this world had claimed that they are tired of making money and so want to give all they have literally? Jeeeeeeeeeez! That would be some news. One lesson I learn from these men is that no matter how much they give out, they always have more. Nothing comes free my pal. Yes! One thing just hit me. There’s a principle of life that states that the more you give the more you get. Don’t let it puzzle you that the rich get richer. It’s a principle, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s written in the Bible, in black in white. Bills Gates gives he gets. Trumps gives, he gets. There’s one way to secure absolute happiness in the quest for wealth. You acquire to help better the lives of people. I have this zeal, undying passion to financially free, and to make other people better. I have read books and seen people in this field. I’m still searching for the answers and already walking in it. I don’t know what your aim is, I don’t know you life dream, but one thing I’m sure of is that you want to make your life better so I urge you to make a stand to, in the words of a friend also in this same vow, “be the best to be the best, write that down if you don’t understand it, you will one day.”

Maybe you might remember I told you a while back that I went for a fellowship on Saturday morning with my mum and I had some amazing understandings of certain things going on. If you want you check that one out, check out for “the revelation of women” on this blog. Well so this time also, the situation was the same; I was stunned with what I heard. Permit me to decipher some information for you. Noooo! Wait a minute, do I need your permission to do that? It was your choice to come read this. Ok! Don’t get mad at me, for courtesy sake, do I have your permission now? Still waiting??? Thank you very much.

So I will proceed to ask you a very nice question, which I’m sure you know the answer to already, if you had been brought up in a Christian family, or heard of it, you could actually in your own way do justice to this question. Why do you study the Bible? I’m sure you can answer that one, right?

I’m sure you would say, to know God, to obtain favour from God, to know why we are here on earth, to acquire wisdom in God’s word, to seek God. Are we on the same page in the reasons? Very sure, right? Okay, for your time sake and mine, I will break this down to you very briefly.

Thing is, we are not actually on the same page. I will show you why. Told you the teaching threw some light on the whole issue. Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying your answers are wrong; it may just need some correction a bit. I know how you can get!

So why do we need to study the Bible anyway? The answer is simple, because God said so, period. (was I supposed to write “period”) yeah you heard me. We study the Bible because our God commanded us to. Someone would say, “then what about all the other reasons” –like the ones listed above. That’s where the understanding has to come in. All those other reasons apart from the one I just told you are benefits we derive for reading the Bible. So let’s make a statement, “all those other reasons like peace, prosperity, long life, success, and many others we derive from studying the Bible are God’s reasons for giving us the command- the command to study the Bible, His Word- Do you get the hidden line here? The benefits are God’s reasons, your personal reason is because God said so. His Word said, study to show yourself approved unto God… in the 2^nd Book of Timothy 2 vrs 15 in the Bible. That’s the underlying statement. That’s it…now you have that understanding, so don’t feel reluctant to study the Bible, you don’t have a choice, its God’s commandment. Trust me; you don’t want to disobey His Word.

I told you this was going to be brief, I know you feel like I shouldn’t end, but it’s your call on how to take what you know now… capish!

Preached by Zipporah Koranteng

Retold here by the writer.