He said, “You introduce your words by saying that life is not the time man lives, but it is about what man achieves in it overcoming all what meets of problems and difficulties. One walks on hid path of life leaning on his trust in God and his belief in goodness. Is not there any confidence one should have on his life journey?”
I looked at him saying, “Yes, one should have confidence in God’s justice; first with man in general and second in your life in particular”. Words flowed like a running river in his mouth saying. “Excuse me but I can see any justice between humans or even the faint form of equity in this life. There is may be justice that would be seen in eternity but now I do not think it is there”. Seconds of silence passed and I answered, “May be your judgment is based on the circumstances that storm the world, but let us slow down.
In the beginning let us speak about God’s justice toward man: Can’t you see that God offer each person talents and qualtification that distinguish him from other people. There is not two identical personalities in the whole world even in one field, you can find that every person has his special talents and skills.
He said, “Yes, but what about the ones who do not have the chance” I hastened to say, “God grants all of us talents but we need to discover, use and improve them. This matter needs a hard work. Do you know what the real problem of a lot of people?” He said, “They do not discover their capabilities?” I said, “I want to be more accurate: they do not want to be believe that every one of earth has a talent that is a gift from God and that he was created to have a fruitful life full of successes. Thus, they need to discover their gifted hidden treasures, develop, invest in them for having a good life and help other to have good life too. All what has created in us is for the good first and foremost”. “Why do not they want that?” he inquired.”Some them may not want to shoulder the responsibility of their life and its decisions and others feels that hard work is so exhausting. So they either choose to surrender offering their excuses like bad circumstances, people who hinder their way or lack of chances.. etc or they try to achieve success without any kind of toiling. On the contrary, we find that the life of great people involved making achievement due to their hard work and their effort to challenge the difficulties they faced” Let me resort to the words of Solomon the Wise
“Do you see a man who [a]excels in his work?
He will stand before kings;
He will not stand before [b]unknown men.”
” He who has a slack hand becomes poor,
But the hand of the diligent makes rich.”
As for those who wants to succeed without working
Applied the verse of Solomon, ” The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing;
But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.”
When we regard the life of great people we find that they have discovered the equation of life, like Thomas Edison who said, “Genius is 1% of inspiration and 99% of hard work”. He always said that “There is no substitute for hard work”. He also emphasized that dreams alone cannot create success, “There is no chance without exerting efforts except in dreams. No one finds these kinds of chances except the sleepers”. Bernard Shaw says that when he was young, he discovered that he failed in 9 tasks out of 10 thus he had to multiply his effort nine fold to do what he had supposed to do. There are many others who did the same,,,but…to be continued…
General Bishop
Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
