I wish to share this second batch of “Gold Nuggets” -- words and ideas you can ponder over and chew on as additional enlightenment for guidance, wisdom, and encouragement, as you navigate your way through life.

They will be helpful as we make plans for the success of the year 2015 and beyond.

If you missed the first three “Nuggets of Gold”, you can access and enjoy them by clicking here.

NUGGET OF GOLD #4

FRIENDS

Great, sweet, resourceful, honest, loving, and very helpful friends do not just “happen to us”. We must CAREFULLY CHOOSE GOOD FRIENDS.  This was the theme of my message when I was asked to be the speaker for an end-of-year banquet for International Students on a university campus in Virginia, USA some years ago.

International students are among the most friendship-thirsty people who crave for love, care, and friends that they can bond to, outside of their native countries; similar to anyone in a new marriage, school, job, organization, church, fellowship, city, or community. But you need to know the categories of friends that exist.

There are 4 basic kinds of friends:

1) Those who ADD - they help to build character in you; encourage, advice, inspire, and support you; and help you to become committed to your duties. Their friendship brings fresh ideas, joy, peace, love, spirit of kindness, motivation, inspiration, godliness, and great resources plus admirable virtues into your life.

2) Those who SUBTRACT - they mislead you from following the path of your initial goals and direction towards your destiny; they cause you to stop pursuing your vision and fulfilling your dreams; they lead you into temptation and sin, and cause you to acquire bad habits. They corrupt, discourage, sabotage, retard, betray, fool, deceive, steal from, and take advantage of you.

3) Those who MULTIPLY - they enrich your character; they help you to develop your leadership qualities and spread your influence by guiding others and sowing virtue into more lives. They make you become more diligent, encourage independent initiatives in you, teach you to deepen your love and forgiveness for others, help you to develop and sharpen your skills, enable you to be more kind and patriotic, stimulate a spirit of holiness and godliness in you, make you advance further, help you make more progress, increase your resources, promote your investments; help you to become purer and more honest; deepen your commitment to people, and enhance your moral uprightness.

4) Those who DIVIDE -  they destroy your relationships with others, criticize and condemn you, cause divisions, create confusion wherever they go; mislead you to become quarrelsome; encourage you to have a brawl with anyone who disagrees with you or offends you; destroy unity, peace, and joy; cause splits in groups; promote fights and quarrels.

You must evaluate from time to time to find out WHICH ONE YOU HAVE as your friend, and WHICH ONE YOU ARE as a friend to others. Then, deal with yourself, and learn how to handle the kinds of friends you have surrounded yourself with.

You can never make meaningful progress in life and in your relationships, if you do not CAREFULLY CHOOSE YOUR FRIENDS.

NUGGET OF GOLD #5

EDUCATION, TRAINING, AND STRENGTHENING

Are you finding things tough right now? Are things rocky in matters of your health, relationships, dating, courtship, marriage, family life, romantic life, parenting, in-law relations, friendships, ministry, profession, education, work, projects, business, finances, investments, housing, home affairs, political ambitions, travel explorations, plans for success etc., and wonder when you will get a breakthrough and enjoy the victory and satisfaction you crave for? Believe that next year will better than this year. Your best days are ahead of you. Say Amen!

The truth is that GOD IS TRAINING YOU TO KNOW HOW TO SWIM IN THE RIVER RIGHT NOW, SO THAT YOU CAN SWIM IN THE BIG SEA AHEAD OF YOU.

The word BREAKTHROUGH has become a buzz word for modern men and women. But, a BREAKTHROUGH does not happen until there is a BREAK-IN. So, ALLOW GOD TO BREAK THROUGH YOUR MIND AND HEART FIRST for the necessary inward changes to occur that will open the door for Him to work on your behalf. That will also prepare you for the blessings ahead of you.

If you allow yourself to be educated, trained, and strengthened by your circumstances and the “problem of small ripples plus Tilapia and other small fishes in the waters of your river” now, then you can manage the “problem of huge waves plus big sharks and other monsters in the seas that you will meet” along your journey of life. Please cool down, stop worrying and fretting, encourage yourself, and strengthen yourself  in the Lord’s grace and power, just as “King David strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6) when everybody opposed him and everything was against him.

For complete and desired results or optimization of all resources and total development of a person, we must have a VISION, and then EDUCATE and TEACH the person with INSTRUCTION that will enable him or her to CATCH THE VISION. We then TRAIN and STRENGTHEN the individual. Now, VISION needs PROVISION, so we further ensure that we supply PROVISION for the fulfillment of the VISION, and MOTIVATE the person to make progress towards the intended goal for ultimate RESULTS.

But, we need to understand what we are doing, and apply all these principles in our parenting (where everything starts), schooling, curriculum development and implementation, job training, leadership development, and execution of all economic, political, social, health, agricultural, recreational, organizational and developmental processes.

So, what do we mean, and what are we to do? In terms of humans:

1)  EDUCATION is systematic training and instruction designed to impart knowledge and develop skill.

2) TRAINING is to teach and accustom a person to do something, and bring the person to a desired level of efficiency, condition or behavior by INSTRUCTION and PRACTICE. In reality, TRAINING equals EDUCATION (or INSTRUCTION) plus EXAMPLE. Therefore, if the focus of your training is only instruction (to your child, fiancée, spouse, family member, friend, employee, people you are leading, specific trainees, church members etc.) with no principled life of practical example that they can see in your life for them to emulate, then you are either providing poor training or no training at all.

3) To STRENGTHEN is to equip a person’s capability to exert great power (physically, morally, intellectually, financially, authoritatively etc.) through EDUCATION and TRAINING, or through numbers, resources, or quality. STRENGTHENING is aimed at EMPOWERING a person’s resistance to being broken, damaged, or captured.

Now that we know and understand these principles for productivity and success, let us adequately equip ourselves with all these tools for the efficient human resource and bumper harvest that we yearn to see and enjoy in 2015 and the years ahead.

NUGGET OF GOLD #6

LEARN TO BE YOURSELF

If you never become yourself, then you will never know yourself, can never describe your real self, can never enjoy yourself, and can never reproduce yourself in the lives of others through mentoring and training.

One of the best ways to live in joy and freedom is to be yourself in your efforts to develop, educate yourself, use your talents and gifts, acquire money and property, and succeed in life. God effectively uses people who become themselves in Him without any undue imitations and pretenses.

Try to honestly be yourself in all aspects of life (for Facebook photos and statements or ‘likes’ and other forms of social media activities; e-mails; marriage proposals; home, family life, dating, courtship, and marriage interactions; engagement and wedding plans; promises and vows; phone conversation; presentations; giving of gifts; donations; church or school and other radio or television and public performances; political speeches; ministry; exercise of your gifts and talents; use of money; purchases; projects you undertake; business transactions; all other relationships etc.).

In this life, you cannot imitate or pretend for too long without an ultimate exposure of what you really are. For example, forcing to use all means to speak, plan, think, and act exactly like the preacher, politician, orator, boss, employee, teacher, student, husband, wife, fiancée, professional, friend, or leader you admire, could end up making you a frustrated buffoon or a fake caricature displaying on an imaginary, false, or unrealistic platform. Baseless or meaningless imitation without any personal goal is not the best way to influence people, become productive, and succeed in life.

Each of us is unique, so don’t force to be like someone else, although we can (and must) draw inspiration from the performance and achievements of others, and emulate their good examples to also perform and excel. Striving to be what you are not, will make you a hypocritical and clumsy square peg in a round hole.

As we instruct and equip people, let us be careful not to train people to be something that they are not. Avoid creating paths that will hinder your true growth, goal-orientation, development, maturity, and fruitfulness. And, let us desist from setting up people for failure by mounting any form of peer pressure on them to become only what will please us without any freedom for them to “become themselves” and patiently or willingly develop at their appropriate and destined rates, according to their God-given gifts, temperaments, and total make-up.   

By Dr. Samuel Kisseadoo, Professor of Biology in Virginia. Ordained Licensed Minister, International Evangelist. Relationships, Marriage, and Family Counselor. Founder and President of Fruitful Ministries International Inc. E-mail: kisseadoo@msn.com. Website for resources: www.fruitfulministriesint.com. Tune in to JOY 99.7 FM in Accra, Ghana to listen to Dr. Kisseadoo’s weekly broadcast “Hope For Your Family” on Sat. 5:30am-6am Ghana time, (or 12:30am-1am US Eastern Time in Nov – March). Access on Internet with MYJOYONLINE.COM. You can ‘like’ his Community Page: FM Int. Inc. or enjoy posts on his other Facebook walls: “DrSamuel Kisseadoo” and “RevDr. Kisseadoo”. Call him in Virginia on 1-757-7289330 (or call 233-20-8126533; 233-276322982 or 233-208209567 in Ghana) for free counseling, prayer, programs, messages, or books. Call to attend free public Family Life seminars in Accra on 2nd Saturday of each month at 10am-12pm at the ministry office at Adabraka. In Kumasi call 233-75-353802. Look for Dr. Kisseadoo’s books at Challenge Bookstores in Accra and other places, or Baptist Bookstore opposite Anglican High School in Kumasi. Use ‘Dr. Samuel Kisseadoo’ to search RedLeadBooks.com or Amazon.com for some of his books. In Ghana, call Tigo or Airtel 545 and follow the prompts for daily inspirational messages of Dr. Kisseadoo. Permission granted to freely share but with acknowledgement.