This message is coming at an appropriate time, considering that it is the beginning of the year. While I believe that the beginning of the year should be a time of praise and a time of thanksgiving; it must also be a time of soul searching. It’s a time when you look at all that has gone on in your life. You recall the fire, the rain, the storms, the ups and the downs. You review them all in the light of your overall mission. You look at them and you ask yourself, ‘What’s the point? Did I miss the point or did I hit the point?’

This is a great time to analyze your activities; a time to scrutinize all the projects you roped yourself into and really check if they brought you closer to your dreams; or whether it was a case of two steps forward and five steps backward. This is a season to take stock of all the resources and opportunities you’ve had so far and find out if they were maximized.

Our role model for this teaching, Elijah, wasn’t carried away by the spectacular miracles God enabled him to perform. I don’t think he would have been acting responsibly if he had just gotten so caught up in all the fantasies, accolade and glamour. He was a prophet of God. He was a leader in his nation. He had a great responsibility and couldn’t afford to get caught up in the hysteria of Carmel with the rest of the masses.

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
~1 Kings 19:4

Elijah had to move beyond the immediate to see the ultimate despite the glamour of the immediate. He needed to ensure that the immediate was serving the ultimate, and not the other way round. And when he discovered it wasn’t so, he ran back to God in despair.

To achieve personal success and fulfill your God-given mission on earth, you have to put the immediate happenings around you in perspective. Don’t sabotage your ultimate because of the immediate.