Time Accelerators 1

This is the fourth part of this weeks posting on the Mystery of Time.  Below are quick links to the previous three posts on the subject:

You Can Mould Time To Your Advantage
Forces That Can Mould Time
Time is an Elastic Intangible

I’ve already used several illustrations to convey my belief that time is elastic; it can be expanded or shrunk by the application of certain forces.  When more or less time is used than what is usual, we use the words faster, or slower to describe the process.  The implication is that more speed equals less time consumption, and vice versa.

My wife has a degree in English language and often proof-reads my posts before they are published.  After reading the previous one, she said, “This is a good one. I’m really interested in finding out what those ‘certain forces’ that can ‘mould’ time are.”   Her comments were in direct response to the concluding statement of that post:

“Yes, you can ‘mould’ time to your advantage through the application of certain ‘forces’.So stick around with me as I intend to explore some of these ‘forces’ in greater details in the next sections of this article”

Well, I intend to write about those forces in this part of the series.

I’ll like to refer to these forces as ‘time accelerators’ because they have the capacity to reduce the amount of time needed to take you from one state of being to another.

The wilderness tragedy…

The people of ancient Israel had a dream – to move into Canaan, their promised land.
It was a beautiful dream and they left the land of bondage with great expectations.  That trip was supposed to take a maximum of eleven days, but they ended up spending a whopping 40 years!

Now think about these questions that I asked my audience during a session of the Success Academy Nigeria :

How long is it taking you to make that transition from where you are to where you want to be? How long is it taking you so far to achieve your dreams? How long is it taking you to maximize your personal and corporate success? How long is it taking to realize the promises of God in your life? How long is it taking for you to gain control over your life and achieve the goals you have set for yourself?  Also, check your so called achievements; have you spent the past 10 years trying to achieve what you could have achieved in one week?

The wilderness tragedy is illustrative of the experiences of most of us today who spend forever in the journey towards the realization of our dreams.  We consume mountainous volumes of time moving around in circles, and getting nowhere.

I believe that the wilderness tragedy was a function of the absence of a certain time accelerator…Courage.

Courage is a time accelerator

“When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” ¹⁸So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle.” ~ Exodus 13:17, 18

This commentary recognizes the lack of courage as the underlying cause of the wilderness tragedy.  The absence of courage slowed them down and necessitated the use of more time to make their transition from slavery to their promised land.  God checked out their hearts and attitudes and concluded that they lacked the guts to take the faster route – one that would have taken just 11 days!  Consequently, they spent 40 years instead, thereby consuming 1327 times more time than they could have.

God was travelling with those guys, yet it is obvious in retrospect that the speed of their journey had nothing to do with the ability of God – it had more to do with their own guts and courage!

Similarly, how far and fast you travel to your preferred future is not up to God; if it were, you’ll be there right away!  It is rather dependent on your ability to take intelligent and calculated risks.

God figured out that those Israelites lacked the guts to move through the land of war.  They were risk averse. They were fearful. They lacked courage.

You see, if you are fearful, and overcautious, if you are afraid to take risks, if you lack guts, you’ll require more time to reach your dreams, probably 40 years,that is if you get there at all!   .  This is because your promised land is often hidden behind a screen of terrifying circumstances.  When the opportunity you are looking for comes, it usually wears a mask called ‘problems’. Now these problems are usually very terrifying and are designed to separate great men from the masses.

The saying “no guts, no glory” is a clear statement that courage is a time accelerator.  In other words, the more courageous you are, the smaller the time you’ll take to achieve your dreams.

I have another brief piece on courage.  Click here to check it out.

Stick around, more time accelerators are up ahead