Hard Work: - A Success Factor

By Adenuga Sunday Joseph

One of the crucial ingredients in Noah's success was hard work. It is true that God Himself drew the plan of the ark to be built, He gave specifications for the materials to be used, He even told Noah how the construction should commence and end. But dear reader, if Noah was a lazy man, he could never have finished the Ark. It is true, you have to understand the hostility of all other people against Noah and his Ark. Nobody believed in his God, nobody wanted to hear about an impending judgment coming upon the earth. In fact everybody was making jest of a “foolish man” who had suddenly gone so crazy as to believe that rain would destroy every living being on earth. They knew he was a good man, very honest and easy going, “but recently”, they thought, “the man must be out of his mind, because he is doing crazy things and telling incredible tales of things that can never happen”. If you understand that this was the prevailing environment, you will know that hardly do we find anybody outside of his family to help build the Ark.

The economy of the world was not as it is now, the craze for wealth and aggressive search for money was not as prevalent as it is now. So I am sure he would not be able to get many laborers to work for him on the Ark. I believe that even the common laborers would have doubled or even tripled their wages in order to work for this 'mad man'. The only thing that saved the day in completing the Ark in a record time was nothing short of a hardworking Noah and his family. Remember that even as they build, they must prepare meals, get money to cater for their own personal urgent needs. Think about the billions of dollars they would need to execute the project ALL sponsored by Noah alone, and worthy of note is that no lack of any sort was ever recorded in the Ark during the one year of sojourn inside the Ark. Provisions were made for human needs, for the need of the various kinds of animals, and also the stability of the Ark in times of serious turbulence of the waters upon which the Ark would be floating. Noah worked hard.

God is also a very hardworking God, you cannot be his friend and not be very hardworking like Noah. Jesus said of God the Father, “My Father worketh...” That means that God is still working, and He said, “hitherto and I work”. If God is working hard and Jesus is, then as a child of God, one will be a bastard not to be hardworking. With determination and hard work, you can be successful in even at the most difficult of all tasks. Make up your mind from today to work hard on your life goal and purpose and success unlimited will be your portion in the land of the living.