Now we aren't all going to be an Albert Einstein but we can be like him and not give up on our dream. He imagined himself to be an educator; a research scientist and he never gave up. He had questions he wanted answered and so he asked, he received; he searched, he found; he knocked and the door of opportunity was opened to him but he had to believe and do the footwork. He had to follow his dream. Had he given up, let adversity get in his way he might well have died in a concentration camp in Germany, considering the circumstances of his early life, and we might never know what we know today. He believed in himself and he followed his dream. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” (Albert Einstein) If we can not imagine, we can not dream and if we have no dream we will not learn; nor will we have a path to follow. We will find our self lost in the wilderness of confusion.
All too often to many of us give up our vision, our hope, our dream, we stop believing in our self and settle for less than what we can be or hope to be. Things happen in our lives and we become discouraged and allow that discouragement to knock us down, to become a roadblock in our path of life. We let life's happenings get in our way. We stop dreaming and we stop believing. Hold it right there. Sit back a minute and do some re-evaluating here. Why are you giving up? What is stopping you? Why are you letting someone or some thing steal your dream, your goal for your life? We all face adversaries and adversities from time to time, an irritating roadblock. Sometimes we all come to rivers that are too deep and wide to cross at the point we are at. So what to do, you can dive right in, sink or swim, you can take time to build a bridge or you can follow the stream a distance to find a less wide, less deep place to wade across. Don't let it stop you. Repair the damage and/or find a way around it, through it or over it but keep on your path, your goal may be just ahead. Life's road is bumpy, it is filled with pot holes and steep hills, rivers and deep valleys, twist and turns that may be difficult to navigate, but not impossible if you will just believe and hold onto the dream, keep your eye on the goal, the finish line. Take it slow; one step at a time. Persistence pays off.
Picture yourself for a moment, starving. You are so hungry you would gladly eat the south end of a skunk facing north. You haven't eaten in days on end. You feel weak and shaky. In front of you is a huge banquet table loaded down with all manner of wonderful foods to eat and you are invited to eat as much of it as you would like and as often. You have two choices, you can pick up your fork and start eating or you can starve to death. The choice is yours. The opportunity is there. The means for satisfying your hunger is there. All the tools are there. The food is there but if you don't eat it, you are still going to starve. The very same thing goes for our hopes and dreams for our life. If we don't feed it, nourish it, it will starve and die.
Life is a journey and all journeys begin with that first step. If you don't keep putting one foot in front of the other you will never get there. William Shakespeare once said “To climb a steep hill requires a slow pace…” You can't win if you don't run the race, right? Remember the children's story about the little engine that could…the little engine came to a very steep hill to climb and no one believed the little engine had the power to climb that hill but the little engine believed…“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Very slowly the little engine chugged his way to the top of that difficult and steep climb and eventually he reached the top because he didn't give up trying no matter how difficult it was. As he started down the other side of the mountain he could be heard shouting “I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could.” He believed in himself and followed his dream. “Yard by yard, life is hard. Mile by mile, life is a trial; but inch by inch life is a cinch.” You just have to keep claiming your dream. If you believe, it is yours; it is, unless you throw it all away. “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will open unto you.” (Jesus)
