The Call The Burden

In life all men possesses an inherent desire to accomplish one goal or the other. This inner desire and passion to accomplish was delegated to man at the time of creation. God made this declaration in the beginning in his word, the Bible "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing  that creeps upon the earth" (Genesis 1:26, KJV).

This was a mandate, it was a call, the foundation of that inherent desire and passion to seek, find and fulfil one's purpose in life. It is that internal force that propels a man towards dominating the earth with his unique gifts and talents as he strives to fulfil this mandate all through the span of life. From the poor villages of Africa and Asia to the royals of Western Europe every heart cries and yearns to fulfil this call embedded in man. It is that call that gives birth to desires, dreams, visions and purposes in all humans.

Right from creation and over generations, it has been seen that the quest to fulfil this call falls within two realms, the positive and negative. It is positive, when man's quest to fulfil this call is in harmony with his creator's very nature, which is his identity and manner of function, which was apparently stated in the original declaration in Genesis 1:26. And it is negative when his quest is in disharmony with his creator's nature. The first human family, Adam and Eve stepped out of this positive realm as they were discharging this mandate in the Garden of Eden. Their attitude in violating God's command was rebellious, disharmonious and led to the dysfunction of their original nature. This marked the beginning of sin and rebellion in man, the consequence of which was death. However, God did not withdraw the original mandate from man at the point of fall neither did he end his freedom of choice making. Therefore, man was allowed to choose to seek God's will and work in harmony with him to fulfil the same will or ignore God's will and work in disharmony with him as he fulfils the original mandate to dominate the earth. Both of which have their consequences.

From the days of the Bible and over the course of history, many men and women have arisen to answer this call, whether in harmony with God or not, we may never be able to answer. But one thing stands out when one closely considers some of these great men and women who have over generations affected the course of history. That concept is "Burden" . There is no call without a burden. What is burden? It is a load, an obligation. It is  responsibility. Winston Churchill once said that "the price of greatness is responsibility." It is that internal force that propels a man towards his destiny. It is that unseen hand that pulls a man with a dream, vision or purpose till the point of reality is reached. Burden propels your passion to purpose, without it dreams can never become reality. It places enormous weight on a man's soul, but does not crush a man. Stay under the weight of it, your soul is enlarged to achieve greatness; escape from under it, your soul shrinks and settles for less. As a weight enlarges the muscles that are being exercised, so does burden enlarge the soul of a man. It is what Alexander Graham Bell could not put his finger on when  he said " What this power is I cannot say, all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it." Whatever the call is, whether religious or secular the principle is the same, there must be a burden attached to it. Without it no call can be answered nor any answered call have its purpsoe fulfilled. It was burden that stirred Moses, a great national leader and deliverer of ancient Israel to rise up and answer the call of his destiny. When he did so prematurely and out of harmony with God's will and timing, he ended up committing murder and consequently became a fugitive. But after forty years of waiting, that same burden was divinely triggered and it turned a fugitive into a bold and fearless deliverer and marched him from the lonely desert of Midian to the Palatial Palace of the great Pharaoh of Egypt to declare the word of the Lord into the ears of one of the greatest powers of his time, "Let my people go." That was the voice of purpose driven by a burden. It saw him through and gave him victory over the stubborn King.

Every call, dream, vision, purpose, destiny has a voice, when it speaks and calls out and its call is heeded the journey of its burden begins and ends only when its purpose has been accomplished. Over many centuries many great men and women who rose up to answer their call whether in the scientific world or in the fight for social justice or in the propagation of the Gospel of our Saviour, were all driven to success and victories by burden. Such men and women as Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Henry Ford, Florence Nightingale, Bill Gate and Apostle Paul are some examples of those who heard the voice of their call, heeded and stood under the weight of their call till their dreams and visions became reality and contributed immeasurably in shaping the world we live in today......