True Greatness is routed through risks...

It is better to die in joyful moment than to live longer in sorrow. This was the thought of Jacob as he was in the embrace of his lost son Joseph at their reunion in Egypt. His past began to threaten his future. The memory haunted him in an instant. It was in the past, but it was difficult to erase. Hear me well! If you’re thinking of the future and hoping that better days will remain forever with you so that you don’t return to the evil days of old; that is not new. If you’re like that, you are not wrong. Jacob too felt that way on seeing Joseph again. Reunion brought fear to his heart. You are not alone in your struggles. God is faithful and good to keep whatever He begins...faithful is He... And I speak to your life today that your past will not return to haunt you down again! And as for those afflictions of yours, they will never arise the second time!The feeling of Jacob when he met Joseph his son whom he thought was long dead was let the end comes now or Let the rapture happen now! He said “Now let me die for I’ve seen you again and know you’re alive.” In a way, I can identify with Jacob’s situation here because of my personal experience. I remember the night my elder brother retuned home from overseas for the very first time after about nine years far away from home with little or no communication. Joyful tears welled up in our eyes. My mother was so happy. We were all full of joy. We didn’t sleep at all through that night. We were watching him as though he was a kind of god that could just disappear again. We were trying to consciously touch him and assure ourselves that he was the one we were seeing. Our senses were our faith at that point. We could only believe what we could touch there and then. Could this be you or a kind of ghost? Is it true that we are seeing you alive?

One of the rare men in history who knew where he would die before he got there at all was Jacob. God told him specifically that he would die in Egypt with Joseph by his bedside (see Genesis 46:4). Quite rare, for men to know where they will die and who will be around them by then. Although, he was not perfect; his relationship with God was so cordial such that God assured him that He will go with him to Egypt and make him become a great nation there. When he was still contemplating the trip to Egypt after receiving the wagons from Egypt he was having fears and skepticisms concerning relocating at old age. This journeying to Egypt at old age; to see one lost son who he has mourn over and gotten over long time ago? Was it worth it? Can’t he come over here if he was truly alive? On seeing Joseph face to face, Jacob wished for death lest an evil day catch up with his joyful moment. After seeing such a happy moment; he did not want to weep again at his old age. Isn’t that the way we feel too? We wish that our happy days never end. We hope that everyday remains a Christmas and expect every thing to go on smoothly in our way…And fear of the unknown keep us far away from going out of our comfort zones. We distaste risks yet we covet success and we desperately desire greatness. When we see successful people; we ask them of their story, they told us the conscious part. The unsaid part and the untold secret is that part they were not able to explain to us in words, rather they have had to risk, act and failed forward anyway. We cannot truly arrive at greatness, without having gone around the routes called risks.