Character Development Lesson Four

Answer The Call!

All of life is a series of choices and what you choose to give life today will determine what life will give you tomorrow.

You must accept total responsibility for those choices. How you think, how you react, the choices you make are totally up to you. Those choices are going to determine who you are, what you have, and what you are going to become ten years down the road.

Some of those choices are easy choices but some of them are very tough choices. It is those tough choices that separate the “men from the boys” – that determine the truly strong and committed individuals.

I would like to share a story with you about tough choices and commitment.

Legend has it that centuries ago Mohammed set out to develop the finest strain of horses in all the world. He sent out his 50 best men to search the world for the 100 finest horses that could be found. In six months they returned with the very finest horses in the entire world. Mohammed trained them himself. It took him six months. He trained the horses to respond to his command every time he blew his silver trumpet. When he was convinced they were fully trained, that there was no more he could do, he took them to the desert to a place where it never got below 120 degrees. He corralled them on a small hill overlooking an oasis of bubbling cool water 100 yards away and gave them nothing to eat or drink. At the end of three days they were at each other’s throats. They were frantic! No more could they be contained.

Then came the supreme test. Mohammed ordered his men to open the corral gates. Now can’t you just see those 100 horses stampeding toward this oasis of water?

When they got within 100 feet of the water – then came the test. Mohammed blew that trumpet one more time. Lo and behold – one horse yielded, reluctantly, obediently, to the master and came. From that one horse they raised the Arabian strain – the finest strain of horses in the world today.

The message is this – that one out of 100 answers the really tough calls – makes the really tough choice – one out of 100 is truly committed. Those of us who want to be the very best that we can be must be willing to answer the tough calls – we must be willing to make the tough choice.

One of the toughest choices we have to make is overcoming “peer pressure.” You have got to be willing to say “no” to those things that can keep you from your goals and your dreams. Even when it seems as if the rest of the world is saying “yes,” you have got to have the strength of character to stick to those things that you know to be right, and to refuse those things that you know to be wrong.