On The Path Of Winners, BY BAYO OGUNMUPE Having What It Takes To Win

On The Path Of Winners

BY BAYO OGUNMUPE

Having What It Takes To Win

BEFORE delving into what compromise is, let us be clear what isn’t compromise. Indeed, compromise isn’t giving up your beliefs or who you are or accepting second best because you are impatient or afraid of criticism.

  Compromise is about negotiating a win – win situation for both sides. It is tempting to dismiss somebody as being wrong, which is when you should relinquish your pride and try to become the other person. Because David heeded Abigail’s plea for mercy, he avoided falling into the trap of his own anger and killing Abigail’s husband who had treated him badly.

  However, Paul has what it takes to win by not compromising on the truth. But he changed his mind about John Mark, giving him a second chance at the ministry. A scripture verse enjoining us to eschew hard headedness is, “Be at peace among yourselves, comfort the faint hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all, always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all,” Thessalonians 5: 13-15.

  But why don’t we see more of God’s promises fulfilled in our lives? This is because we overlook the process. It is in the process of reaching the promise that we become discouraged and quit. Success in any venture lies in hanging on, even when others let go. Indeed, there is a process we must go through in life regardless of our faith. There are no shortcuts to greatness. We have got to pay full price. Persistence is the price of achievement,” in due season we shall reap if you do not faint,” Galatians 6:9.

  For years, William Wilberforce pushed Parliament to abolish the slave trade. Discouraged, he was about giving up when his ailing friend John Wesley heard of his campaign. And from his deathbed Wesley called for pen and paper. With trembling hands, Wesley wrote: “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and of devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? O be not weary in well-doing! Go on, in the name of God and in His mighty power, till even slavery in America shall vanish away before it.” Wesley died six days later. Wilberforce fought for 42 more years. Three days before his death, slavery was abolished in Britain. Eventually, it was abolished in the United states too. Hang on, what God has in store for you is worth any price you have to pay. Persistence is what it takes to win.

  When Tolstoy was a boy, he started the Polar Bear Club. To become a member, you had to stand for 30 minutes and not think of a white polar bear. Have you ever intentionally tried not to think about something? That is almost impossible. But withholding from thinking enriches our flashes of intuition. It increases our psychic perceptions. However, we often handle temptation without thinking. We think we can handle it at any time. But the problem is, the more we neglect it, the more it becomes the centre of our focus. The Bible says: “Submit yourselves to Jehovah. Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” James 4:7. But you cannot banish satan by your own strength! When you keep your eyes on Jehovah God, the devil will flee because you are resisting him by embracing God. Be humble enough to embrace and seek help from God. A sure sign you are on the path of failure is when you think, “I can handle this on my own.” See this as an alarm blow urging you to submit to Yahweh and say,  “Lord, I need your strength and wisdom. Lead me not into temptation.” Then walk away from the temptation. And if you need to, call a friend for prayer and thanksgiving.

  Our champion for today is James Dewey Watson, the U.S. geneticist and discoverer of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the substance that is the basis of heredity. For his discovery of DNA, he was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with Francis Crick and Maurice Walkins. Watson enrolled at the University of Chicago when only 15 and graduated in 1947. From his research at Indiana University (PhD 1950) and from the experiments of Oswald Avery, which proved that DNA affects hereditary traits, Watson believed the gene could be understood only after something was known about nucleic acid.

  After working at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge University, UK (1951-53) he determined the structure of the DNA in 1952. In 1953, Watson suddenly discovered the DNA must be linked in definite pairs. That discovery was the key factor that enabled Watson and Crick to formulate a molecular model for DNA. The model also showed how the DNA molecule could duplicate itself. Thus, it became known how genes and chromosomes duplicate themselves. Watson and Crick published their epochal discovery in the British journal, Nature in1 953.

  Subsequently, Watson taught at Harvard University (1955-56) where he served as professor of biology (1961-76). In 1965, he published The Molecular Biology of the Gene, the most extensively used modern biology texts. He wrote Double Helix in 1968, an informal account of the DNA discovery and the roles people played in it. Thereafter, Watson assumed the leadership of the Laboratory of Biology at Long Island, USA, and made it an international centre for biology research. He concentrated on cancer research, publishing in 1981, his The DNA Story written with John Tooze. Watson now an investor in biotechnology and parapsychology, was 84 on Good Friday this year.

  However, Sir Francis Harry Crick is a British biophysicist. He with Watson and Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine together. Crick helped determine the chemical (DNA) substance responsible for hereditary control of life functions. This discovery was widely regarded as the most important scientific achievement of the 20^th century. After using X-ray studies by Wilkins to unravel the mysteries of DNA, Crick  moved from Cambridge to the Salk Institute in California, USA as professor of biophysics. He has written many books discussing the implications of the revolution in molecular biology.

  For Maurice Wilkins, he is the New Zealand born British biophysicist whose X-ray diffraction studies of DNA proved crucial to the determination of DNA’s molecular structure by Watson and Sir Harry Crick. For the DNA discovery, the three scientists were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine.

  Wilkins, the son of a physician was born in 1916, educated in Birmingham, England and St. Johns College, Cambridge. His doctoral thesis, completed in Birmingham University in 1940 contained his original formulation of his electron-trap theory. During World War II, he participated in the Manhattan Project at the University of California, Berkeley, working on mass spectrograph separation of uranium isotopes for use in the atomic bomb.

  Upon his return to Britain, Wilkins first lectured at the University of St. Andrews, then joined the University of London where he became director of Biophysics Unit and developed his DNA research. At Kings College London proper, he was professor of biology (1963-1970), of biophysics (1970-81) and emeritus professor thereafter.