IS THERE A MIRACLE IN THE ACADEMIA?

This message goes to all students who get confused and get mad at God whom they blame for seeming  to be uncaring about their poor grades yet they spend more time praying for a miracle than reading. Their anger is to the effect that how can God, the Almighty fail to make a miracle that ushers them into excellent grades. Either He is not Almighty or He does not love them or still He may be non existent. Further confusion sets when these men and women of faith see the students whom they regard as unworthy because they are very sinful, in addition to being blasphemous excelling as heads in the same exams where they become tails and sometimes discontinued for poor grades. They discover scriptures taking an opposite trend especially the promises of God in Deuteronomy 28:13, "The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, ..." which is regarded a miracle. When the opposite seems to be the case, they get see God as not being hard to understand. 

But what is a miracle? This is an extraordinary and welcome reality dispensed by powers beyond the natural. Real miracles violate the known laws of science and the realm of human culture. Miracles are attributed to a divine source to which they ascribe glory. Miracles are generally founded on faith but not hard work of the recipient. They work best in a religious setting.

In the academia, however, things generally work differently such that, as a student,
- the more you work hard
- the more you temporarily deny your eyes sleep
- the more you seriously budget your time profitably
- the more you consult teachers and students better than you
- the more you are willing to be good to those who consult you
- the more you engage your brain and desist from obeying the
natural law of laziness,
........., the better the quality of results.

In the academia, God has given us the responsibility of working out miracles ourselves under His general grace and this is an open cheque to every body including witches and the faithless in God. 

• Faith without hard work is foolishness, 
• Hard work without faith is betrayal but 
• Hard work blended with Faith is Wisdom. 

You need faith in what you are doing to the level of motivating you to vie for the best of everything at disposal. 

In the academia, God rewards hard work more than faith whereas in religion God rewards faith more than hard work but He does not reward nothing if there is nothing. Keeping other factors constant, hard work and faith in what you want to do are synonymous. Hard work is an action, it is a deed. Whereas the bible says that Faith without action/deeds is dead (James 2;26). In the academia, faith without hard work is a day dream and its proponents are day dreamers who neither mean what they say nor say what they mean in their unseriousness. In their unseriousness, they have faith of reaping what they never sowed.

In my years as a careers teacher, I have seen scores of students who have exhibited high ambitions in very competitive university programs but who become frustrated at the end. This because they have a lot of interest in the program but with non-matching ability for the program. Each program has its own demands ranging from duration (three year to almost six) to consistent hard work. The courses begin with

     - a tough start off with at HSC.
     - school with rules and regulations which may seem unfair and inhuman
     - sometimes at a boiling point of an imaginary youth vs aging generation battle with parents, teacher           and society fighting.
If you go through all these then you deserve to pat yourself on the shoulder.Loving to excel at the expense of hard work is fake magic, far below the stink of guesswork in serious work. Unfortunately some lazy students expect an unfounded miracle in this case. 

In the academia God gives us power to create our own miracles to His glory. In his book,"Gifted Hands" , Ben Carson recalls his mother's words, ''Everything you need is found in the book.'', the best miracle which open every door is found in the book. Reading your books is like sharpening your ax to cut down a tree. Gradual reading results in a gradual reading culture. We could start slowly by reading simple pacesetters for simple English constructions, as early as Form Two.

Nobody is born with a reading culture but it is acquired through practice and practice is personal. Reading novels will widen your mind to accommodate a lot of information to be transformed into knowledge. It  makes you a different person and it  harnesses interest in reading further. This interest in reading coupled with ability to handle a certain subject results in a successful person.

Great interest in subjects for which you have no ability is like sharpening a wooden knife to compete with a sharpened metallic knife during a peeling championship. Consider what you have just read.

I call for any addition as we seek to change the mindset crippled by laziness taking different dimensions.