The Strength of a Winner

By Hakim Abdul-Al

I consider what I do as a columnist as a special task. It’s one where I attempt to reflect on topical things that are going on around me and the greater world-at-large with spiritual comprehensions and insightful candor.

I’d like to think that I’m that kind of journalist because I believe that it’s an honor to share my views with you and others, even it you and others may disagree with my outlooks and opinions from time-to-time. In my scope of viewing things in life, I honestly interpret them as “it is what it is,” with no apologies needed.

Today I’m going to venture into a secluded sacred inner realm called faith and how important it is and should be in one’s view of living in the world. These are my thoughts, so please know that I’m not saying what I’m  writing for purposes of propagandizing to anyone, but rather to simply say how vital I feel that possessing faith in the Most High Alone and in one’s self really, really is.

First, let me say that we are all ethnically created beings and, as such, there’s a definitive reason for all of our existences in the here and now. I dutifully express that knowing that the sheer understanding of the fact that the Creator Alone controls life and death, and there’s no denying that, so Who else am I going to have faith in.

If that undeniable reality is clearly comprehended by you also then, hopefully, you’ll relate to the next area I’m going to touch on, and it’s about  having faith in and believing in one’s self. As a deeply spiritual believer in God Alone, I find that I’m often asked by many different folk of all ethnicities, genders and religious persuasions to give them some “good words and vibes” about uplifting their intermittent and frustrating spirits.

I try to embrace those inquiring situations by telling them that they must and should believe in themselves, or in other words, they must have faith in themselves. Whenever those moments occurred, I related to them, as I’m relaying to you now, that activating faith is the most vital thing that one should set out to do or obtain in positively moving forward in the living experience.

To do this, as my late, dear mother used to say, one needs to look for and jumpstart one’s faith, and when that happens that soul will be on the path of being “a winner” in the game of life. My mother spoke with poignant clarity because she was a woman of tremendous spiritual strength and wisdom as most old school Afro-American parents of yesteryear were.

She would oftentimes say that belief in God was the absolute cornerstone of faith, but she would also instruct me about the finalities of possessing faith in who you are and what you should be about. To her having faith in one’s self was possessing the ability to believe you have won (even) before you have.

That lesson, from this magnificent lady of soul, who died in 1985, has never, ever left my spiritual spectrum, even when I’ve been at low ebbs in my life. Mom would tell me in her gentle, soft spoken Southern manner of speaking that the strength in acquiring faith is like possessing the skill in overcoming any obstacles, hurdles, oppressors and enemies in my path before they can galvanized, or regroup, to overthrow me.

I think of that often because so much of my mother’s teachings about life came for her deep and heartfelt Christian beliefs. I’m a devout Muslim of the orthodox persuasion, only believing in the Creator Alone as the Most High, but I know that many things that my mother was telling me has come full circle in my very own spiritual comprehensions.

My belief in God Alone shows and tells me that we all should know that by possessing faith and belief in he Most High Alone is to take victory in hand from the very start in any perplexing situations in life. I resolutely believe that because to truly, or really, be successful in life in doing, or accomplishing, anything you desire, one must have a strong spiritual base to begin with because a serious winner knows that “thoughts are synonymous to actions.”

I try to relate that essence to whomever I speak to or whenever I write in my columns because today’s complex living experience is, sometimes, clearly about dealing with many super negative naysayers and abstract thinkers in our midsts. I offer that knowing that listening to barren complainers for too long will surely throw you off from accepting the fact that life’s adversities are there to teach us all about some very crucial grownup learning lessons.

My mother used to say that growth is about believing in one’s self (having faith) which feeds the weak-minded and hungry in adversity when facing the trials of life. She said to one and all who listened intently to her that, “The Lord will make away out of darkness if you only believed.” Do you agree?

I also believe that last statement she voiced, and in many ways she was (and is still) correct because having faith during life’s hard times and difficult situations builds character and strength, if you catch my drift for today. Having faith in God Alone during all of the trying moments in life is what makes one truly a faithful believer in one’s spiritual self.

One of my religious instructors in Egypt used to emphasize that the only time true believers in God Alone lose in life is when they lose true faith, or “imaan,” in the Creator Alone. That understood lesson seemingly has come back to remind me to hang in there when times are rocky, and I’m stronger for it because there’s absolute truth behind knowing “The Strength of a Winner.” God Alone is the Greatest.

No matter what activity that you are involved in life you must go about “TCB” in your chosen affairs by doing your best by being inspired by the strength of your spiritual faith. I sense that you know that one has to have real and “true faith” in order to approach and achieve any wishful goal in life — plain and simple.

“The Strength of a Spiritual Winner” is marked by his or her determination to meet the challenges of dealing with life’s ordeals, adversities, hurdles, enemies, pitfalls, trials, and tests, etc. Nothing comes easy to a winner who’s a spiritual warrior in disguise, which is something my father would say to me whenever things in life were becoming difficult for me to fathom in my early development from childhood to manhood. He was right.

All that I’ve briefly said is what, to a degree, I’ve said and continue to say to one and all who ask me for a kind word or two of uplifting encouragements to enhance their worlds of existences. The winning gifts of sharing and caring about your fellow brothers and sisters in “hue-manity” when their troubled worlds seem to be going nowhere are winning strengths unlike no other. Dwell on that.

So, remember too that winning in life implies a whole lot more than what you may randomly conjure up in your inattentive mindset at times. It’s about putting the faith in the Most Alone in action, knowing that with that initial boost you’re on your way to success.

Now, activate the faithful belief  system in yourself and go conquer whatever it is that you want in life. Maybe, with that successful acknowledgement, you’ll see and realize what “The Strength of a Winner” is all about, and for today and always, that’s, “As I See it.”