Life is like a race in which all the participants run feverishly to reach a destination. They run with exuberance and tenacity to attain some goal that seems to elude them. Yet each day they gird themselves like morning joggers and head out again for the racetrack of accomplishment, toiling madly to attain some level of success. This race doesn’t start when we reach adulthood and enter the work world. No, this  is a race that begins in the womb and at the count of three, with the grunt of a mother, we all come out running. Deep down, we all want the same thing, and we spend all our lives looking for it.

Layered below the tragedies and adversities that happen in life, there lies a hopeful dreamer who wants to find the answers to life before the questions are screamed in our ears. Life does have a way of screaming questions that demand answers immediately, and it seems as though it will punish us for not knowing the right answers. Almost every regret that you have now evolved when life presented the question and you lacked the answer. That is the real race to life: to know your purpose and anchor into it before the bell rings, the class closes, and the night comes. Time is ticking, day is wasting, life is fading; we must learn in the light so we can choose in the night.

So how do we find those answers? I have dedicated my life to knowing three things:

• Number one, I must know myself. How can I love what I do not know, or mend what I have not seen? I must know myself. It is dangerous to allow others to know you better than you know yourself. Remember that knowledge is power!
• Number two, I must know my source, my Creator. What does it profit to know the product if you have no relationship with the manufacturer that gives you comfort in crisis. For when the product is in danger, it takes the manufacturer to redesign the technology or align the equipment. God is my manufacturer. I must know Him before I dare to know the third category. If I know the first two, I can study the third in relative safety.
• and yes, number three. I must know my neighbor. I must know those who surround me. For even though we are born alone and die alone, we are not meant to live alone. We are social animals who need to love and care for others and have the same given unto us. I said you need to know yourself and your Lord  before you can enter into a true relationship, but a relationship is hollow if you don’t really know the person with whom you’re interacting. You can learn the dance steps and listen to the music, but if you don’t know your partner’s moves, you might as well be dancing alone