You can say well you don't understand how bad it was and my family and my background and our culture and this and this and this and this; the poverty and the struggles or whatever. You can say a whole lot of those kinds of things. At the end of the day someone could pick that up and make something happen out of that. I was just talking last night to the guys about a man born in Putaruru who had a harelip and cleft palate and a speech impediment. He was so unable to communicate properly that the headmaster called him retarded. He recently received $47 million for selling his share in Trade Me. [Applause] And this is what happened. This is what happened. His mother said you may have these physical issues, but no son of mine is going to be a dummy. Find what you're good at and make it great - and he did. It shows what can be done doesn't it aye? Of course you'd say but it's not [poor person. 00.19.44] He's not feeling poor. It fact he's actually very, very wealthy. [Laughter]
Come on, you've got to make a decision. How many saw the 20/20 with Tess, our niece, you know Paul's daughter? How many saw that. Oh man you'd love to see it, you really have to see it. She was born with no arms, just from the elbows down, no hands and this part of the arm. But to see her attitude and spirit and she said oh I don't need arms, I don't need hands. He said would you want to have hands? She said no, I don't want hands. She said I've got a great life like I have, and there she is scaling a wall, a climbing wall with no hands. Some of you would look at it with hands and not even try; I can't! Aaah, I can't! I watched her climb up there with these little stumps, up she goes, unbelievable. And it's a real credit that Paul put into her not to consider that as being an obstruction and a limitation for her life. She doesn't consider herself disabled at all. Everyone else does and feels sorry. Feeling sorry doesn't get you anywhere. You've got to make decisions, got to be responsible for your life, personally responsible for your life.
Isn't it fantastic when you think about these kinds of things? And so don't go down this blame game. Don't go blaming someone else. Just own your stuff. If there's a conflict find your part, own your part and become empowered to make a difference. Don't go blaming someone else. There's two examples in the Bible that I can think of of this. One of them is King Saul found in 1 Samuel 15. Read the verses there, 1 Samuel 15:20-21. And you see Saul and he begins to blame the people; ooh, it wasn't my fault. I did what God wanted me to do. [Where's the 00.21.18] people? What kind of leader is that, he's blaming the people for what happened? He's the leader, he's in charge. You don't blame the people for what you allowed to have happen, see? And so what happened was he never took responsibility for his bad decisions. What he did was he tried to blame someone else for them and what happened was he lost his destiny. He totally missed his destiny.
Why did he miss his destiny? Very, very simply for this one reason; that he would not take responsibility for his failures. What a contrast to David and we see that in the verses there in 2 Samuel 24:10, where David said I have sinned against the Lord. He took full responsibility for his decisions and for his failures. What an amazing thing for a young man to take that kind of responsibility. He never blamed anyone else; he took full ownership, full responsibility. We need to see how clearly it is, you make these quality decisions: I will not be a victim. I will not play the blame game. I will take responsibility for my life. I am what I am because of my choices, not because of someone else. I'm where I am because of my choices, not because of someone else's. I will be in the future where God wants me to be because I chose to be.