More: The Pursuit of Your Greatest Life

As I write to you, I am just fresh off a vacation. It was much needed, and I enjoyed every moment of it. In just a few days, I will be celebrating another birthday. This time of the year always gets me thinking about life, my journey, and all the lessons that I have learned along the way. I wanted to write this piece to both inspire and empower you to reach for more in your life. More importantly, I want you to pursue the greater life that is calling you. More is not out of reach. More is only accessed through the reprogramming of your mind.

1. Life is a tremendous gift. Honestly, the last year of my life has been extremely challenging. In fact, I have had moments when I questioned my vision, the value of what I do, and even why I do what I do. Most of all, I have questioned whether what I do is valuable or all in vain. Before I allow my mind to wander, I always come back to the simple but profound truth that life is a tremendous gift. No, everything is not always perfect in our lives, and everything does not always go according to plan. However, you have to anchor yourself in the tremendous gift that life is. Growth has taught me to appreciate the highs, lows, victories, and defeats. I can appreciate my trials, tribulations, and even the moments of turbulence that I thought would devastate me. Ultimately, I can celebrate the fact that I am still here and still standing by the grace of God. I have had so many things that could have destroyed my life, but everything has developed my strong foundation. Life is a gift that can only be appreciated when you live anchored in gratitude.

2. Gratitude has carried me through every season of my life. I hear so many people talk about being self-made. However, I know better than to ever allow those words to come out of my mouth. My life and work are admired and respected by people all around the world. While people love my message, I find it interesting how uncomfortable people become when I start to talk about my faith. In fact, you can hear the silence the moment that my faith is brought up. One of the things that they do not tell you about success is that it is a journey that you will have to take alone. People will admire you. Others will even celebrate you. Moreover, you will find many who try to emulate you. What several decades of living have taught me is that they want to emulate your success. However, nobody wants to emulate your struggle. For every win in my life today, there is a war that birthed that win. Unless you can appreciate my struggle, then you will never understand my strength. I have won awards, achieved extraordinary results, and earned the reputation of a respected leader around the world. Yet, none of those things define me as a human being. When the storms of life are raging, I cannot depend on my accomplishments or the accoutrements of success. It has been the anchor of my faith and the pillar of gratitude that has carried me through. So when I lift my hands and give God glory, when you see me bow my head in the presence of powerful people and still pray, and when you see me defend truth when it would be easier to stay silent, I want you to know that my faith is for real. I do not wear my faith as a trendy garment. I wear my faith as a badge of honor because it has shaped me into the man I am today. If God cannot go with me, then I do not want to be there.

3. Wholeness is the seed for more. When I look back over my life, I have zero complaints about my journey. In fact, in every season of my life I can see the grace, mercy, goodness, and favor of God. Notice that I did not say that everything in my life has been perfect and every season has not been ideal. However, even the pressure of my life has been part of the providential plan of God to propel me into prophetic destiny. Every single year of my life, I ask God to live a life of more. When I say more, I am not talking about more excess, more extravagance, or more things to cater to the ego. Instead, when I say more, I am talking about a life of more joy, more peace and more fulfillment. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that equates more with possessions. On the contrary, I equate more with living a life of substance and significance. I want to live a life that honors God, values time, treasures meaningful relationships, and maximizes my greatest potential. More is not about having possessions. More is about living a life of purpose. When you are whole, your desires change, and you live a life that is destiny-centered. In other words, you stop looking for life to give to you, and you start looking for ways to give and contribute more to life. Wholeness brings you into a life of meaning.

4. Be courageous enough to pursue your greatest life. As I prepare to celebrate another birthday, I cannot help but stop and think about how full my life really is. Again, when I say that my life is full, I am not talking about material things. No, I am talking about Who I possess. I am talking about the fact that God is the center and anchor of my life. Personally, I define living full as liiving in the center of your assignment and living consumed with the thing that you have been born for. Furthrmore, living full is having the audacity to show up authentically and to be who you were born to be. Ultimatley, you cannot live fully and live free until you live independent of the opinions and expectatios of other people. To live fully, you have to be willing to empty your life of everything that does not enhance, expand or elevate your life. When you make the nonnegotiable decision to pursue your greatest life, not only will you experience joy and peace, but you will experience a life that overflows. You will come to realize that your life is so much bigger than what you acquire or what you do. Your life is a seed that is intended to multiply exponentially. If you want to embrace more for your life, then you are going to have to surrender. It is giving up the need to be right and the need to be the center of attention. To embrace more for your life you must undestand that your life has a higher purpose and that you were never intended to serve your own interests. Only then will your life overflow and pour into the lives of others. We were created to be conduits and not containers. You can serve selflessly and pour endlessly!