There Is A Winner In You: Life Principles For Winning

By W. G. Seavey

To the reader of this book – you must forget those things, which are behind and move into your future. Change addresses. You may have lost a few rounds, but the fight is not over until God says it's over and not one second before. God has been very busy exposing the winner in you. Give it time to surface. Oftentimes, the winner in you is hidden from your view because it's buried under the depths of your failures. But God knows exactly where it is and He knows all the right buttons to push. What is God up to? He is exposing Himself through you for others to see. "Let your light so shine (or in such a way_ before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. – (Matthew 5:16NKJV) "In his encouraging book, ThereIs A Winner In You," Bill offers readers a positiveglimpse into the life of a winner.Sharing both Scriptures anduplifting stories from hispersonal life, he takes the readeron a journey from underdog toThe Winners Circle. A helpful bookfor anyone looking to become aChampion he or she desires to be." Janice Thompson, Author of "I Know I'mNot Alone, Lord. "Excellent book! It helps discover the hiddenpower to succeed. Two-thumbs up!Cornell & Alice MonroeHouston, Texas "Inspiring and innovative.Whether you are a stay-at-homemom or a top executive, "There Is A Winner In You" is a must read book for living a more productive life."Karen J. CappsKaty, TexasAuthor of "Sassy and Savory"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098058500

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There Is A Winner In You

Life Principles For Winning

W. G. Seavey

Copyright © 2020 by W. G. Seavey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Who, Me?

You Are a Survivor and Survivors Win

This or That, Which Are You?

The Law of Association

Just a Slippin’ and a Slidin’

Creating a Winner’s Atmosphere

Halt, Who Goes There? Advance and Be Recognized

CAVU—Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited

There Is Beauty in Your Mess

It’s Pruning Time

Having the Mind of a Winner

Detour! There’s a Muddy Road Ahead

The Building of a Champion

Chains, Fetters, and Yokes

Accentuate (Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate) the Positive

Tomorrow

If You Want to Be a Winner, You Must First Leave the Nest—Now You Can Soar like an Eagle

You Can If You Think You Can

Keep It Clean

Plans

To live healthy, a person must be committed and disciplined, be discerning and have insight, be full of knowledge and understanding, but above all, have wisdom, for it is the principal thing.

Author’s Notes

Allow me to tell you a true story of how a red hunter’s jacket got me into a lot of trouble. Fortunately, the trouble was short-lived because it served to reveal the winner in me.

I grew up in the state of Maine where the winters can be very cold. On one particular day, the weather was more frigid than usual, the temperatures dipping well below zero. I was getting ready to go to school, which was about a half mile away from my house. My dad—realizing how cold it was and knowing that I was not adequately dressed for below zero temperatures—gave me his red hunting jacket to wear. It was much too large for my small frame. Regardless, it would serve well protecting me against the blustery morning walk to school. The walk was uneventful. Nothing unusual happened. Wild bears didn’t attack me; neither were Indians hiding behind trees waiting to launch their arrows at me (remember this was the late 1930s). No, nothing that exciting happened that morning.

Finally, I arrived at the old Mitchell Street School, walked into my classroom, found my seat, and began the arduous task of plowing through the morning’s activities. After a couple of hours of brainstorming world problems, the recess bell rang, and everyone happily ran outside to the schoolyard, which was barely recognizable because the snow had obliterated its borders. It was a fun time for all having few restrictions.

I had put on my dad’s red hunting jacket in advance preparation for the recess’s activities. So far, so good! That was, until a boy named Dickie spotted me in my oversize jacket. He, along with his gang, began making fun of me, which continued throughout recess. Finally, the bell rang, indicating recess was over, and we were inside stripping off our outer layers of warm clothing. And was I relieved since Dickie couldn’t touch me in my classroom. All systems were on hold, that is, until it came time to walk home after school that afternoon. Both Dickie and I took the same route, which gave him opportunity to continue his barrage of insults hurled at me because of my oversized jacket. Suddenly and without warning, Dickie, who had been following me at a distance, began running after me, closing the gap between us rapidly to beat me up. Wanting no part of this, I began running even faster, rounding the bend in the road, relieved that my house was finally in sight.

Now this episode in my life had happened more than once. In fact, it had happened so many times, I was getting used to it. By the way, Dickie never did catch up to me, and so I was never beaten up by him. Then there was my dad to deal with. On one of those occasions, I rounded the bend to discover my dad standing in our driveway. He had observed my race for life with Dickie just steps behind me, closing in for the kill. When I saw my dad, Dickie was no longer a threat. Dad was! Dickie, who had also seen my dad, quit running after me pretending nothing had ever happened. Instead, he waited for the next day and another opportunity to make fun of me and my oversized red hunting jacket.

Since Dickie was behind me now, and Dad was in front of me, I had a choice—surrender. But to whom? Since Dickie was no longer a threat and Dad was, the choice became apparent as I walked toward my dad, who was scowling at me as if to say, Why are you running from that boy? I was thinking, Okay, Dad, what manly advice do you have for me now?

Dad said, "If I ever see you running from Dickie or anyone else, you will have me to deal with, understood?

Yes, sir was the best reply I could come up with.

D-day had arrived. The day’s activities were much the same as any other day. It was now time to go home. Dreading the inevitable, I began trudging through the snow heading for my house. I breathed a sigh of relief since Dickie was nowhere in sight. Suddenly, he appeared from out of nowhere, and the race was on. Apparently, he had been hiding from me, waiting for just the right opportunity.

Dickie and I were pretty much the same size. Being slightly larger, he held the advantage. At least that is what he thought. I rounded the bend in the road running faster than ever as my house came into sight. That’s when I realized my dad was standing in the driveway. Oh, woe is me. What to do now? It’s Dad or Dickie. Suddenly and without thinking, I stopped dead in my tracks, turned and beat the stuffing out of Dickie. He never stood a chance. Dickie surrendered almost immediately, turned, and ran the opposite direction. He never messed with me again even though I continued wearing my oversized red hunting jacket for those remaining days of wintertime in Maine.

What happened? The winner on the inside of me surfaced at just the right time. What I had not realized was that God had placed that in me long before I had arrived on planet earth—the will to win and to survive. It’s in all of us. Here is your success key: No one has been left out. You are who God says you are. You can win because you are a winner!

There are several keys to winning.

You must be prepared before the battle, which means having adequate armor before taking on life’s challenges (read Ephesians 6:13–18). Only then can you look at those challenges saying, Back up now. I’m coming through. Don’t mess with me. I’m a winner!

You must learn to diffuse problems early. Take their strength away from them. The longer you allow problems to have a voice, the louder that voice becomes. The problem then becomes stronger than your will to win, and you succumb to its power rather than you having dominion over it. Take charge and have dominion (Genesis 1:28).

Never turn your back on problems. Confront them. Face them squarely stopping them dead in their tracks. That’s called taking the wind out of their sails.

Know who and whose you are. You are not a loser but a winner. You are an overcomer more than a conqueror. No weapon formed against you can prosper.

Since the winner was in me from the beginning, I could have taken Dickie out the first time he chased me and avoided a lot of embarrassment. But without adequate armor (that’s called a mindset) and without realizing I was a winner, I found myself easy prey.

I realized much later that my oversized red hunting jacket was not the problem. Dickie used the jacket to get to me. It simply was the tactic of a bully. He was on the prowl for a weakness in me, a loophole through which he could attack, throwing me off guard.

It didn’t take long for the news to spread throughout my school that I had defeated the class bully. Understand there will always be class bullies in your life. I wanted to please my dad and therein lies a major key. We must, as children of God, desire more than anything, to please our Heavenly Father. My dad knew I could win. He just never told me I could. Not armed with that information before the battle caused several losses, not victories. I could have won had I known beforehand that I could.

I’ve written this book especially for you to let you know that you can win. No matter the losses in your life, no matter where you have come from or who you are, it’s your time to be all that God has created you to be. That pleases him. You are a winner! Eres un ganador!

Chapter 1

Who, Me?

A life frittered away disgusts God; he loves those who run straight for the finish line.

—Proverbs 15:9 (MB)

God must love winners! Why do I say that? I say it because I believe that, as a parent, God sees all His children as winners. Another reason I believe God sees His children as winners is that He doesn’t look through the same pair of glasses that you and I do. A good example would be my four grandchildren. I see them all as potential winners because God has put all the right ingredients in them to be winners. That, by the way, includes you and me. What we do with what He has given us is another story and one that we will investigate further in this book.

How do I know we are all winners? Because the seeds (potential) God invested in us from the very beginning were for winners, not losers. Think about it. God has created everyone to be a winner. That means you and me. Yes, you are not only a winner, but you were from before the beginning. That’s right, I said you. God created all of us with purpose.

Now before we go any further, let me inject this one thought. You have not become as in, I have arrived, but rather you are becoming. Every morning is a new day. You will never fully arrive and to think so is foolhardy. But you and I are always in the becoming mode. Becoming what? We are becoming all that God had planned from the very beginning.

Now, I can hear some of you saying, Who, me? You have to be kidding. Take a good look at me. I am not a winner. After all, look at where I came from. There never has been a winner in any of my family as far back as I can remember.

Now wait a minute. Who told you that lie? Who sold you on that bill of goods? How could you buy into something like that? Look at it this way—if God created losers, as some insist they are, is there any hope of ever becoming a winner? If there is hope, how then do you become a winner?

Here is your answer. You cannot become something that you already are. Losers (if there is such a thing) are winners sidetracked from their purpose. They simply started out on life’s journey on the wrong foot. That is to say, winning never occurred to them. FYI, you did not start out as a loser. You started out as a winner, but somewhere along the way, someone sold you on a lie. Loser, you know you will never amount to anything, so why try?

In the first chapter of the book of Genesis, we learn that God filled the void—he did not create one. Likewise, you did not arrive on the planet empty of what God had purposed for you—your destiny. Did you know that there is an unlimited amount of potential locked up inside each of us? It is in our spirit or DNA and was there before the beginning. I call it God’s gift within. Be careful. Do not neglect God’s gift in you (1 Timothy 4:14). God has supplied us with all that we will ever need to win in life. It is the grace of God.

Know Who You Are and Act Like It

Keep the devil confused. Act like a winner even though you might have lost a few rounds. He will never be able to figure you out, and you will keep him going around in circles chasing his tail. While he is occupied with his own dilemma, pursue God and be the winner you were meant to be.

Here is the key. You cannot consistently act in a manner which is inconsistent with who you really are—a winner. Winning is not an illusion, but rather it eludes us because of the words of our own mouths. Yes, most of the time we are our own worst enemies. Remember this: Every word that proceeds from our mouth either locks or unlocks the potential in us. The devil even uses our own words against us to divert the streams of blessings God has planned for us. The Bible calls it words of life or death (Proverbs 18:21). Watch your mouth! You could be unlocking the winner in you—even now. Winning begins with you and me. It’s all about realizing who we are in Christ.

God created winners, not losers. It would be inconsistent to act as a loser when God says we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14).

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works and my soul knows very well.

To make light of this verse is to render