When we wake up in the morning, the daily miracle begins to unfold. Twenty-four hours at our disposal. No one can take it from us. It is unstealable. No one of us receives more. No one of us receives less. Nobody is rewarded by even an extra minute a day. Our daily peace of mind, our joy, our health, our feeling of contentment and our sense of fulfillment depend on our daily usage of our gift of twenty-four hours. How we spend our gift of twenty-four hours depends on our attitude. Are we controlled by optimism or pessimism?

Let me share with you the story of an Arab fellow whose optimism, hard work, persistence, and vision led to the blossoming of flowers and other plants in the dry desert of Jordan. A historic feat.

“Musa, an Arab boy was educated at Cambridge, went back to Palestine where he became a well-to do man, by Middle Eastern standards. Then, in political turmoil, he lost everything, including his home.

“He went beyond Jordan to the edge of Jericho. Stretching away on either side was the great, bleak, arid desert of the Jordan Valley. In the distance to the left, shimmering in the hot haze, loomed the mountains of Judea, and to the right the mountains of Moab.

“With the exception of a few oases, nothing had ever been cultivated in this hot and weary land, and everyone said that nothing could be, for how could you bring water to it? To dam the Jordan River for irrigation was too expensive and, besides, there was no money to finance such a project.

“What about underground water?” asked Musa Alami. Long and loud they laughed. Whoever heard of such a thing? There was no water under that hot, dry desert. Ages ago, it had been covered by Dead Sea water; now the sand was full of salt, which added further to the aridity.

“He had heard of the amazing rehabilitation of the California desert through subsurface water. He decided that he could find water here also. All the old-time Bedouin sheiks said it couldn’t be done; government officials agreed, and so, solemnly, did the famous scientists from abroad. There was absolutely no water there. That was that.

“But Musa was unimpressed. He thought there was. A few poverty-stricken refugees from the nearby Jericho Refugee Camp helped him as he started to dig. With well-drilling equipment? Not on your life. With pick and shovel. Everyone laughed as this dauntless man and his ragged friends dug away day after day, week after week, month after month. Down they went, slowly, deep into the sand into which no man since creation had plumbed for water.

“For six months they dug; then one day the sand became wet and finally water, life-giving water, gushed forth. The Arabs who had gathered round did not laugh or cheer; they wept. Water had been found in the ancient desert!

“A very old man, sheik of a nearby village, heard the amazing news. He came to see for himself. ‘Musa,’ he asked, ‘have you really found water? Let me see it and feel it and taste it!’

“The old man put his hand in the stream, splashed it over his face, put it on his tongue. ‘It is sweet and cool,’ he said. ‘It is good water.’ Then, placing his aged hands on the shoulders of Musa Alami, he said, ‘Thank God. Now Musa, you can die.’ It was the simple tribute of a desert man to a positive thinker who did what everyone said could not be done.

The likes of Musa Alami must have inspired the late President Theodore Roosevelt who once said that “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again.”

Have a joyful day!