Bang!!! His spade hit something hard... shocked he dug SLOWLY around it, it seemed like a metal crate of some sort, he then brought it up and opened the lid slowly and reluctantly,half afraid half excited...WOW! his heart jumped it was full of raw Gold, later on he realized that it wasn't just any type of gold, it was a very rare and unique specie, overjoyed he went home dug a great hole in the ground hid it, he was just 25 and he had seen and gone through a lot of hardship,born an orphan he laboured from place to place all he had was an inherited Old house, then a still voice came how can you have gold in your backyard and suffer this much, it was then he went to his underground safe took one out and sold it, he get money but not much, then he decided to wash the gold make it look neat ,and then he took it to the market and surprisingly he got paid more,
hmm he thought it was the same gold but one seemed to be valued over the other, so on his way back home he decided to pass by a jewelry store, the biggest jewellery store in town, cause he was still puzzled about the difference in value. On getting there he was shocked to see a small piece of earring worth so much money in comparison to the gold he sold, it was there and then he learnt one of the greatest lessons in life "having value isn't enough you have got to have it in a way no one else does", that earring was a tiny piece of gold but it was refined, meaning it was tiny but it was at its own tiny best.
So he decided he was going to refine all remaining bars of gold before selling them, and not only become the richest man in his town, he became known in his country, why cause he didn't just have gold that was rare, but it was refined.
This tale is a tale of you and i, our mothers and our fathers, this is also a tale of our pastors and teachers, the policemen in our state and the thieves in our neighborhoods, the leaders in our government and the cults and gangs around us.
Finally this story is a tale of everyone we have ever known in life and will ever know
Now i know you are kind of confused, as to how this relates to you, and everyone you know and would ever know.
This tale relates to us and all who we know and will ever know because this is a tale of hidden VALUE, we like that poor farmer, have something something hidden yet very valuable with and within us, meanwhile we hustle and struggle to make ends meet , and all this while we have gold in our backyard.
Now what is this gold i refer to, this gold is the wealth which you now posses but don't know, and if you know, you haven't made use of it the best you can.
This our gold(value)unlike the farmer wasn't left by mistake in your back yard but is a result of an intentional deposit by our creator, not just to benefit the owner but also the world around him
If you look back at that story very well you will get to
There are also three parts in this story
*First the discovery of value
*Second Serving of that value
*Thirdly the refinement of value
These are the three stages that must be accomplished if you are ever going to enjoy or maximize your gold
Service
Just because the farmer had a crate full of rare gold with him, didn't make him rich nor prosperous, why ? because value WITHOUT service is WORTHLESS, he had to serve that Gold to the market for its value to be realized, just because you carry immense wealth in you now doesn't mean you are ever going to be blessed by it, you have to serve it.
This is the most critical element in the transformation of the wealth you now carry in form as potential to reality, because the worth of anything and anyone on earth is in their ability to serve value not just own it. That's why some of us people don't like rich people that are stingy, cause it doesn't matter if the guy has a million dollars it never going to get to you in anyway, hmm hr value which is a lot money of money, and hr is unwilling to give (serve it).
Jesus knew this, that is why when his students were arguing within themselves about greatness, he defined greatness for them saying...
...the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.
Luke 22 vs 26
Just imagine bill gates had the idea of the computer software and choose to implement it and use it for only himself, would he have ever been the richest man alive? i don't think so
Having such a wonderful gift as you do now, you can still die broke and in debt, because the fact that you are gifted doesn't mean you are going to be prosperous, you have got to serve it, imagine Neymar said erm i only want to play football at home, would he ever have gotten to be the highest bought player in the world, N and O NO!
So its service But the thing is if you are ever going to maximize your gift who you really are, and like that tiny earring be the best you can, you have to do more than service and this leads to my next point.
Refinement
Serving of value is what makes you great, but at a point just serving isn't enough, that man served rare gold(value) to the market but got in return little money, its not that the gold wasn't the same material as the tiny earring, its that the earring was refined of all impurities while the farmers gold wasn't.
This is the reason people spend 20 years serving their gifts and yet nobody gets to know them, because yes they are valuable but the value they got ain't refined, refinement is what puts you on the world map, every body is serving value but you have got to serve yours in a way nobody can, that's why we value gold and all those minerals because they have and serve value that nothing else can, in the way they do.
Actually the gold in us is different from the mineral gold because we are human beings and each human being is different, you can never find 2 humans that are totally alike, meaning though we are all human beings each one of us is scarce, imagine a human being refining himself, so he is now scarce and refined(at his best), and he chooses to serve himself, mehn you wont attract nobodies, you'd bring the greatest in world to your door steps, imagine having all that in your backyard, now DON'T imagine again, because ITS ACTUALLY THERE.
It is NEVER ENOUGH to be gifted, you have got to SERVE it, it is your service and CONTINUOUS REFINEMENT that brings you before great men, that why you see people die everyday having lived ordinary lives, its NOT because they weren't gifted its because they DIDN'T SERVE their gifts.
A great man once said the wealthiest place on the earth is not the gold mines of South Africa, neither is it any of those fabulous places in world, the wealthiest place on earth is here in Nigeria, it is called the Graveyard in there are men and women with gifts that the world never saw, i even think there was someone with the cure to cancer, someone with the answer to the corruption and decay in Nigeria, billion dollars businesses but they never got to serve it.
So now a question for you, are you going to keep on postponing and procrastinating your wealth and fulfillment and in the end let the graveyard take it, or you are going to set out like the famer and serve your value?
If you don't all you are now is all you will ever be, until the seed chooses to die and serve its fruit no matter how beautiful and rare it is, it can only be a glorified seed and not a tree
WILL THAT BE YOU? I advice you choose differently
