DEFILING YOUR LIMITATIONS ( By Wilson Ileogben).

Everyone on earth has his strengths and weaknesses and these are the things that make us unique. My qualities if well harnessed will make me stand out from the crowd. If we all understand this, we will appreciate the people around us and not try to be like them. We will only end up becoming their second best.

If we understand our friends, wives, husbands, colleagues and so on, we will not read meaning to everything they do. The way a person will react to things will be different from the way every other person reacts. So, we should not judge people when we observe their weaknesses. Instead, we should try as much as possible to understand people around us in order to live amicably with them. 

We all need to harness our strengths and work on our weaknesses. I have wished several times that I did not have weaknesses. But I have realized that wishing them away will not change them. Instead, the only thing I can do is to recognize them and work on them. Having weaknesses does not make you a wicked and an evil person. It is what makes you unique and makes you want to be better in life. We should not allow them to impede us from becoming who God had made us to be. There are people who we have heard of and others we know who have defiled their limitations to become great in life. If these people could do it, we also can do it.

The woman with the issue of blood defiled her limitation to receive her healing. Mark 5: 25-29 says” ²⁵ Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, ²⁶ and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. ²⁷ When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment.²⁸ For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.”

She defiled her state and the crowd not minding the law about women in their period to be healed. This woman is a good example of people who did something about their weaknesses to achieve greatness.

Nick Vujicic a man with no limbs who teaches people how to get up. I'm happy; why aren't you?" asks Nick Vujicic. He is an Australian man born with the rare Tetra-amelia syndrome. Despite being limbless, missing both arms at shoulder level, and having only one small foot with two toes protruding from his left thigh, he is doing surf, he's swimming, playing golf and soccer. Nick graduated from college at the age of 21 with a double major in Accounting and Financial Planning and became a motivational speaker with a focus on life with a disability, hope and finding meaning in life. Having addressed over 3 million people in over 44 countries on five continents, he also spreads his message of hope on his book Life without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life, published in 2010.

 

New Yorker Liz Murray was born in 1980 to poor, drug-addicted, HIV-infected parents. She became homeless just after she turned 15, when her mother died of AIDS, and her father moved to a homeless shelter. Murray's life turned around when she began attending the Humanities Preparatory Academy in Chelsea, Manhattan. Though she started high school later than most students, and remained without a stable home while supporting herself and her sister, Murray graduated in only two years. She was then awarded a New York Times scholarship for needy students and accepted into Harvard University, matriculating in the fall semester of 2000. She left Harvard in 2003 to care for her sick father; she resumed her education at Columbia University to be closer to him until 2006 when he died of AIDS. As of May 2008, she was back at Harvard working towards her degree with plans to graduate with a degree in Psychology in June 2009. Her life became a movie in 2003 and she now works as a professional speaker, representing the Washington Speakers Bureau. That same gutsy strength that pulled her from the streets now transforms the lives of others, from student groups to business audiences in need of inspiration to overcome their own obstacles.

Born prematurely, Wilma Rudolph weighed a mere four and a half pounds. At age 4, Rudolph contracted polio, forcing her to wear leg braces for five years and orthopedic shoes for two years after that. Five years after she started running at all, Rudolph made her first performance at the Olympics. Then in 1960, Rudolph showed the world what she could do. At the Summer Olympics in Rome, Rudolph claimed three gold medals in the 100-meter, the 200-meter and the 4x100-meter relay race. She also managed to set two world records. 

In 1 Samuel 17, David defiled in his limitations to overcome a tested and proven soldier, Goliath. He was a boy, inexperienced in the matters of war and other things but he trusted in God by saying he came in the name of the lord to overcome a champion who defiled his people. His experience shows that the perfect way to overcome our weaknesses is by trusting God to help us overcome them. He created us and he knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows the ways and solutions to that limitation and weakness. The other way we can also overcome them is by deliberately working on them. 

Weaknesses are not evil and they do not make you an inferior person. They prove that there is more to you if only you can defile them. They are the things that can make you great or nothing in life if only you can work on them. We should realize that they are not the opposite of strength. Instead, they complement our strengths and they are what can help our strengths become greater and give us the opening in life that our strengths can ride and work on. You can defile that limitation if you make up your mind because in you resides greatness that the limitation is covering. There may be consequences and pains but they will bring their rewards at the end of the day if we can defile our limitations. Wilson Ileogben