The trilogy of greatness. As prescribed by the Universe, the Three Fold Path of Greatness requires that he who would be great must be born, broken and must have blessed.
Born to be Great, Broken to be Great and Blessed to be Great!
Believe it or not, you were born to be great. In fact more than being born to be great you were born great. Truth is, greatness is an ancestral inheritance passed down from our first parents who were endowed with greatness by the Creator.
Born to be Great, Broken to be Great and Blessed to be Great!
But being born great is only one of the three required paths one must travel to attain true greatness. Born great is not as easy as it sounds. To be born is a journey that tests the mettle of a person even before they are a physical being. Consider the odds of you being born as you. The mind-blowing zillions of potential genetic /DNA combinations carried by millions of sperm chasing that single fertile egg. One millisecond later, and the sperm that fertilized your mother’s egg would have been just another second-place sperm that ran the race but lost and died in your mother’s womb.
And imagine the odds that of all the people your mother and father could have met, fallen in love with and consumed their burning passionate love in the supreme act of love. Without this one in a million chance of yoru father meeting your mother, the sperm that carried your genetic being would have never had a chance to begin the birthing of you.
Yes, being born is intrinsically great. Everyone that is born is indeed born great. But born great is not enough to complete the trilogy of greatness.
One must be “broken great”. History proves this; that every man or woman to whom greatness is ascribed bears the inscription of greatness only after experiencing a time, a season of brokenness. And not just a surface brokenness, not a dent or scratch but a profound brokenness that engulfs the soul in the valley of the shadow of death, a brokenness that is in fact death.
The irony is that this brokenness that is like unto death is the opposite of birth. That one must be born great and then be broken unto death; both prerequisites to being great is a mystery of the Universe that so prolifically punctuates the natural order of things.
Look and learn from nature and you can’t help but see this paradox of greatness. A great oak tree was first born as the acorn but experienced brokenness unto death when it fell from the towering oak tree to the ground and for a season of time lay dormant in the soil before being the great oak that towers majestically in the forest.
To be born and then to be broken, two necessary requisites on the path of greatness.
One indisputable quality of greatness is the ability to survive brokenness and be better beyond the brokenness. It may not be unreasonable to say that the true measure of one’s greatness is the depth of brokenness they were able to be resurrected from.
Mahatma Gandhi; propelled into greatness as he came through the brokenness of a 21 day fast and the brokenness of being stripped of his credentials. But one name rings out in this born to be broken to be great. A Galilean Teacher, broken, some say on a cross, may be the greatest of the greats. Some say he was born to be broken and in so doing he left a template for greatness to all who would be great.
But to be born great and then be broken great still leaves a gaping chasm in the trilogy of greatness. To complete this trilogy of greatness one must bless to be great.
A true measure of one’s greatness is the number of lives that have been blessed by one’s life. When it’s all said and done it is what was done for others that really rises to the level of greatness.
This is why Mother Teresa is great, why Martin Luther King Jr is great. This is why greatness is measured in lives; lives impacted and touched. Greatness is measured in the number of lives that are blessed by your life.
But to be given the opportunity and the heart to bless others is to be blessed. Another irefuutable principle of God’s Universe is that to bless others is to bless oneself. This irefutable principle is why great men and women always out others first knowing or at least havng some perceptive hint that the karmaic rule of teh Universe will be their reward for putting others first.
Greatness requires of me that I have blessed others as a natural outflow of the blessings the Universe has given to me.
So, who among you would be great? Let them be born great, let them be broken great and let them be blessed great.
W Vernon Murray CPA MSc DBA
Director Genesis Leadership Training