Devotions
Leaving a Legacy : Breakthrough and create a path (Part 2)
Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? - 2Kings 7:3 (NIV)
There is a quote credited to Ralph Waldo Emerson (an American
philosopher of the 19th century) that says, “Do not go where the
path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” They
explain it as meaning that you should not necessarily do things the way others
do, create your own solution, be creative and innovative. I like this quote,
and I also like to think of it with a different meaning, that if you find
yourself stuck where there is no way, create a new way to come out of whatever
is holding you down. This brings to my mind some war tactics I have watched or
read. I’ve watched many war movies and
have always been fascinated by military tactics and strategies. There are times
one camp finds itself completely surrounded by the enemy. There are only two
solutions left for them: surrender and die in the enemies’ hands or create an
opening in the enemy’s lines. The last one requires too many sacrifices and may
result in many casualties, even total destruction. But the former is a solution
of the coward that leaves behind humiliation and loss of dignity and freedom.
There are
times in real life when we find ourselves surrounded by problems from all
sides. Spiritually, you have lost your compass, when it comes to health, you
are not well, financially you are bankrupt, and your social and family life is
disintegrating. Here I’m not talking of everyday challenges or the common life’s
tests and difficulties, but of serious problems, with the magnitude of a
tsunami, that can determine life or death. People who will leave a legacy don’t
allow themselves to be entrapped by problems. Whatever the cost, these people
create a way for themselves and for others next to them. They are willing to
pay the price with whatever means they have. These are people like Maya
Angelou, Rosa Parks, Malala Yousafzai, and many others. They broke from
strongholds of racial and gender prejudices, cultural barriers and abject
poverty. Such people have this mentality: “if I do nothing, I will die for sure;
if I try something, I might also die, but I prefer to die trying.” They don’t
wait for someone else to create an opening; they go where there is no way and
leave a trail. Isn’t this what happened with the four lepers in 2 Kings 7? If
we stay here, they said to themselves, we will die, there is famine in the
city; if we say we go to the Syrians’ camp, we might also get killed. But what
is sure is that we can’t stay here for death is certain if we do nothing. There
is no living without taking risk, our daily life is in fact about risk though
sometimes we don’t even realize it. But as they say, if you risk nothing, you
have nothing. For the four lepers, they had reached the dead end, and they did
not have the luxury to wait for the king or the prophet Elisha to find a
solution for them. They had to break through and find their own path. Their act
of bravery saved them, saved their king and the rest of the people.
A man of
God told me of the revelation he received about the statue of Daniel 2:31-32.
The statue’s head was made of pure gold. He told me that God revealed to him
that the human head is pure gold; it is full of riches far greater than any
other riches. It is no wonder that the best computing machine ever made can’t
be compared to the human brain’s capacity. God has put all the capacity to
create, invent and solve problems in our brains. Don’t let yours sit idle, use
it to create, innovate to find solutions, and leave a trail for others who will
follow. Don’t rely on others to think for you, and don’t allow your mind to be
trapped in a box, that is why they say: think outside the box. This is not a
blessing given to some and kept from others, God gave all of us a head made of
pure gold. The more you will use it, the more it will work for you to create
new ways. Remember the parable of Matthew 25:14-30. The more we use what we
have, the more it creates room for more to be added.
Posted : Jan 19, 2026