Pray For God-Given Ideas

GOOD ideas come from Jehovah, so ask Him for one. The world has been blessed by those who did. Consider anesthesia. How would you like to be operated on without it? That was the way they did it before a Scottish doctor named James Young Simpson introduced what he called “artificial sleep.” As a student at Edinburgh University, he was attracted to surgery because he was troubled by the pain and mortality rate experienced during operations. As a result of reading “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam,” Gen. 2: 21,Simpson thought chloroform might be the answer. So, he first experimented on himself.

Finally in 1847, the first three operations with chloroform took place. One of the patients, a young soldier enjoyed it so much that he seized the sponge and he inhaled again.” It was just too good to be stopped,” he said.

At first Simpson encountered opposition. Some thought it sinful to interfere with nature. “Hand me the Bible,” said Simpson.

“This was how God operated on Adam,” Simpson explained. Then Simpson made speeches, wrote letters and pamphlets convincing people that this was the way forward.

The tide turned in favour of chloroform when Queen Victoria (1819 – 1901) gave birth to her eight child under chloroform and declared that she was “greatly pleased with its effect.”

Another God-given idea that changed the world was Braille. In 1824, Louis Braille invented a system of raising dots on paper so that blind people could read. He invented 63 symbols representing every language, hence God’s Word was placed into the hands of the visually impaired for the first time. Besides, you owe your mobile phones and the computer to a man named Samuel Morse.

How different the world was before Morse! First class news took two weeks to reach the USA. And reports of a major victory could take six weeks to reach Britain. One day a friend said, “Morse, when you were experimenting, did you ever come to an absolute deadlock, not knowing what to do?” Morse replied, “More than once.” His friend asked, “What did you do then?” Morse shared a secret,” I got down on my knees and prayed for light, and light came, and when my inventions were acknowledged by flattering honours from America and Europe, I said, “Not unto me O Lord, not unto me, but unto Thy name give the glory.”

That was why the first message sent by transatlantic cable read, “What God has wrought.”

Then add another name, Louis Pasteur, the French scientist, who showed us that infection is the result of things we cannot see, namely germs and viruses. He introduced sterilization methods that eventually saved the lives of millions.

Think God has run out of good ideas? Not at all! Ask Jehovah for one for your life, your mission, your business. And you will be surprised by the God-given answer to your prayer.

Here are a few reminders for a life of fulfillment and prosperity. One, you must be focused. “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes,” Benjamin Disraeli. “As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatchet them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end, shall be a fool,” Jeremiah 17:11.

Two, a law of success says you should be persistent in the pursuit of your worthy goal. So your key to personal success is persistence. It produces power. Persistence made Abraham Lincoln great. Another former U.S President, Calvin Coolidge said: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

“Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Three, your key to greatness is building a dynamic purpose. The only Jew who ever became Prime Minister of Britain, Benjamin Disraeli ,said: “The secret of success is constancy to purpose.” The magic formula for wealth has never changed since money was invented in Asia. It is: find a need and fill it. When a man dedicates his life, time and energy to a cause greater than himself, he develops a dynamic purpose that truly makes life a romance and glorious adventure.

Four, watch what you say, your subconscious cannot take a joke. It brings all you say to fruition. Five, know that faith is like a seed planted in the ground, it grows after his kind. Plant your ideal of greatness in your mind, water and fertilise it with expectancy and it will manifest as you imagined it. Six, imagine the end desired and faithfully feel its reality. Follow through and you will get definite results.

Seven, great and noble thoughts upon which you habitually dwell become great acts in your life. Eight, “Thou shall decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee, and the light shall shine upon thy ways,” Job 22:28. Nine, remember that the thankful heart is always close to the riches of the universe. 10, be a mental engineer and use proven techniques in building a grander and greater life. 11, your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfilment of your desire now and feel the reality and joy of the answered prayer.

Our example of rags to greatness today is Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). He is the Italian economist and sociologist known for his Pareto Principle and his application to mathematics to economic analysis. After graduating from the University of Turin in 1869, where he had studied mathematics and physics, Pareto became an engineer.

Thereafter, he became a director of an Italian railway firm. Residing in Morence, privately he studied philosophy and politics, writing for periodicals. He analysed Italian politics and economy with mathematics. In recognition of his powers as a formidable economic analyst he was chosen to succeed Leon Walias as the chair of political economy at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Pareto’s first work, On The Economics of Politics (1897), included the famous law of income distribution, a complicated formulation in which Pareto proved that the distribution of incomes and wealth in society is not random and that a consistent pattern appears throughout history; in all parts of the world and in all societies.

In his, Manual of Political Economy (1906), his most influential work, he further developed his theory of pure economics and his analysis of the power of economics to give satisfaction. He laid the foundation of modern welfare economics with his sociology. Writing his greatest work, Mind and Society (1916) in which he inquired into the nature and bases of individual and social action, Pareto argued that persons of superior ability actively seek to confirm and aggrandise their social position. Thus social classes are formed. In an effort to rise into the elite of the upper strata, privileged members of the lower-class groups continually strive to use their abilities and thus improve them. The opposite tendency obtains among the elite. As a result, the best equipped persons from the lower class rise to challenge the position of the upper class elite. There thus occurs a “circulation of elites.” Because of his theory of the superiority of the elite, Pareto has been associated with the fascism ideology. Although his scientific discovery had not been faulted, it has robbed him of the Nobel Prize despite several nominations.

Another economist of interest to the present economic reality in Nigeria is the Norwegian economist and pioneer of economic forecasting, Trygue Magnus Haavelmo (1911 to 1999). He was born in Skedsmo, Norway in December 1911 and was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize for Economics Science.

After the outbreak of World War II, Haavelmo left Norway to deliver his doctoral dissertation, “The Probability Approach in Econometrics,” at Harvard University in 1941. Though he had two doctorates from the University of Oslo, his innovative thesis cited by the Nobel Committee for its influence was first published in 1944 in Econometrica, an American periodical. In the 1940s, Haavelmo taught at the University of Chicago, where he became a visiting professor till the late 1950s, before returning to Norway in 1947. He retired from Oslo in 1979, ultimately becoming professor emeritus.

Haavelmo’s statistical techniques made possible the development of econometric models that predict how a change in one aspect of the economy will affect others. Thus, he demonstrated that probability theory could be integrated into economic formulations. He had therefore pioneered the system and techniques of national economic forecasting, allowing a more accurate formulation of government economic policies. Haavelmo died in Oslo, Norway, in July 1999.