Find your weakest link

I enjoy using technology to make my life easier and more pleasurable but I have no desire to understand how most things work. I’m not a techno geek or DIY (do it yourself) kind of guy. If I could, I’d even hire someone to change the light bulbs at home! So when I couldn’t connect to the internet at home recently, I did what comes naturally to me: I called my service provider. They gave me a very simple and satisfactory answer: the network is down in my area. So I used my alternative internet access while I waited for my othe rinternet access to be restored. My wait turned to days and then into a whole week. At a certain point I decided to see if I could do a bit of DIY. I looked atthe cables and found that one of them was disconnected from the adapter; I connected it, but still there was no internet access.

After one full week I called my provider again and it was discovered that when the system went down all my settings changed, my password was reset, and so on. The technical guy guided me through a complicated procedure for about 30 minutes; suddenly I had access again. I thanked him and I hung up. However, even though I had internet access again; it was so slow that I couldn’t do anything. After a few days of painful waiting to see if the system would correct itself; I remembered my feeble attempt at DIY; I went to the adapter, disconnected the cable and voilà, I had fast access again!

I had gone through a lot of delays, made several phone calls, carefully followed the instructions of the “expert” and waited patiently for several days, yet I didn’t have a breakthrough in my quest and desire to have my internet access restored.

Life is not as simple as ABC… it’s a complicated system of events and factors that all work together to produce success, achievement and meaning. It is possible to do 59 things right out of 60 and still suffer spectacular failure. As a pastor, I see it all the time. People, who are gifted, talented, generous and loyal to a certain degree, yet are not making the most of their talents. Water boils at 100°C; until it reaches that temperature it remains just very hot water. It may be useful for many things, but it cannot be used to drive a turbine. Water at 99°C may be very hot but totally useless if the purpose is to drive an internal combustion engine. I wonder, my dear reader and friend, what may be holding you back from the success that you desire and the kind of life you want for yourself? It may not be that you have done everything wrong. You probably have done 50 things right,but like the cable I forgot to disconnect, there may be a missing link.

Life is exactly like that; many people excel at almost everything except the most important things.I hope you find what it is that you are doing or could be doing that is holding you back from becoming all that you need to be. You may be strong in many areas yet weak in the most important one. Do not let your strength in those other areas keep you from developing the strength you need in a crucial area. Maybe you know a lot and have access to a lot of information, but there may just be one little crucial area where your ignorance may be costing you more than you may care to admit. Do not let what you already know keep you from finding out what you still need to know.