The stock market crash that year left many in serious financial crises. Till today, many people have yet to recover from it. It came sudden. But he received an instruction from the Lord just a day before the crash; God told him to sell all his shares. It looked stupid, but it prevented him from the crash. He was proactive.
Friend, one of the advantages of a life of wisdom is the advantage of being proactive. Rather than being proactive, a lot of people are just reactive. While to be reactive means to act AFTER the event, to be proactive means to act BEFORE the event. It is to see ahead and take relevant steps so that you will not be a victim of the times.
“A prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3). To be simple, according to scriptures, is not a good thing. A simple person is someone who is naive. It is someone who is ignorant or foolish. We can infer from this scripture that most times, the problem is not the evil, but the absence of wisdom.
While the people of the world are wiser after the event, kingdom people are wiser before the event. They live by the answer. That is what it means to be proactive. The Holy Spirit has not only been given to make you speak in tongues, He has been given to make you proactive. One of His assignments is to show you things to come (John 16:13).
To be proactive, you need to have foresight. You need to see ahead before others and before events. This was what Joseph leveraged in Egypt, which made him a Prime Minister. Everyone experienced the famine in Egypt, but foresight made Joseph and Pharaoh to “hide” themselves. They prepared for the seven years of famine during the seven years of abundance (Genesis 41:34-49). Foresight would do the same for you.
To have foresight, you must be a student of history and a student of prophecies. While history tells you about the past, prophecy tells you about the future. Natural men can only know the past (history) via study, Kingdom people have the advantage of not only knowing the past, but also knowing the future, via the operation of God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:6-16). This was the advantage of Daniel (Daniel 9:1-2). It can be your advantage, too.
‘Demola Awoyele
Lead Pastor,
Destiny Impact Church
Akure, Nigeria