"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths".
Proverbs 3:5-6
NKJV
This morning, a flood of thoughts relating to this subject filled my mind and I'm like "OK, I gotta post this on my blog" and as I thought of a scriptural verse to back it up, the one above came to mind. Its been weeks since I last posted anything anyway, and I think this is a great comeback post to keep y'all dated on what's been happening. These past weeks have been some sort of an experience that has taught me extensively on just letting God take the lead. I'm still learning but hey! what's wrong with being a little generous?
Have you ever felt like you are the one to fix it? Have you felt that you must be the wind of change in some place or some situation? Have you ever felt like you have to live up to certain expectations or fulfill certain conditions?.................................and the list is endless. If like me, you have felt all this before then it's time to let go and I've got a couple o' tips for us!
Where are you?
If you feel this way, then you probably don't know where you are. In Gen. 3:9, God asked Adam,"Where are you?". Most of us have probably wondered why God asked that question. When God asks such questions, it's not because He doesn't know. It's because you don't know. If you are to define your purpose, that's the question you must answer. If you want restoration, that's the question you must answer. Deceiving yourself, I think, is the worst form of deception and if you don't ask yourself where you are, you can't get anywhere. It's just like getting out of your house without any destination in mind. Futile, right?
Who are you?
You and I make this mistake a lot. We don't know who we are; so we keep turning other people into ourselves and making them our goals so when we don't match up, it's like our world has come crashing. We feel disappointed, angry, frustrated.............................Enough of that! Who are you? Take time and ask yourself this question. Get help if you need to- from parents, trusted friends or even columnists that deal with related issues. I did a couple of that and I was able to get back on track by God's grace. Realizing that God did not make you to be like any other person; that He made you to be you is perhaps, the most liberating discovery you can ever make.
Failure.....................................
Failure is inevitable and that's why in Ps. 91:12, it clearly explains that God has put the angels there to pick us up when we stumble. As J.K Rowling put it in her speech to the 2008 graduating set of Harvard, she said,''You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in
life is inevitable. It is impossible to live
without failing at something,
unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in
which case, you fail by default".Of course, failure is something we all fear and dread and God himself has not planned for us to fail(Jer. 29:11). But then, there are unavoidable mistakes and events of failure we have to go through to make us wiser and stronger. When we realize this, you would not see that mistake or failure as a stumbling block, you'd see it as a stepping stone. More importantly, you'll not see it as a means to blame God, you'd see it as a means to thank God. That you are a child of God does not make you immune to failure.
Success vs. Perfection
"Aim for success not perfection", This morning, I remembered seeing this on the JAMB website yesterday and I saw how good a point it is. Success is not perfection. And in anything we do, if we keep aiming for perfection, we'd keep failing. Some of the things we would encounter if we aim for perfection instead of success would be:
The Fix-it Virus: We would think of ourselves as some sort of 'Mr Fix-it' and this attitude is very overwhelming. When we constantly think of ourselves as this, we would only end up disappointing ourselves and those around us. God doesn't need you to fix it up; He can work things out and fix them up himself but you were not designed for that purpose.So, don't try to force yourself on situations. They would change when God wants them to and not when you want them to.
The False Humility Syndrome: Just as AIDS is to HIV;so is the False Humility Syndrome to the Fix-it virus. When we are constantly plagued by the virus of fixing things up, it becomes so overwhelming that we begin to develop the false humility syndrome. Courtesy of a book called "The Final Quest", it explains that false humility is a form of pride and deception and it irritates God. It means that instead of trusting in Him to fill that void, you are trusting in yourself. We never can do anything on our own. We would always need God. And the good news is, ''He is with you". He told Moses, Jeremiah, Gideon,Joshua, Peter and now, He's telling you. He doesn't need you to be perfect, none of those people were. He is perfect and He needs you to look at Him instead of yourself!
Hmmph..............At this point, I'd have to say, "Watch out for Part 2!"
Just keep a date.
