Month: May 2018

I watched an advert recently with a caption that says, ‘who wins if you win?’ The gentleman being interviewed in the advert was asked that question and he went on to recount the names of the people who were going to benefit from a win of any sort in his life. He recounted people he knew – people that had been a great source of influence to him, whom he wants to appreciate; which was a good, yet an expected course of action.

The question however got me thinking of the people around me whom I influence without even knowing. As I mediated on that, I got chatting with one of my spiritual daughters who had been unavoidably off work for a while. After a long period of absence, she was finally able to go back to work recently. I knew she loved what she did and was asking her how she was settling back into her role.

She gave me an update as to what touched her most about returning to work aside being able to go back to practising in her career. She mentioned the welcome and hugs she got from each support staff within the building. The security staff, cleaning staff and other none direct colleagues who all took time to welcome her and inform her of how much she’d been missed. She got comments about her being missed because of her smile, warmth, caring nature and ability to give attention to those around her. She wasn’t just appreciated by the support staff and her colleagues, her superiors were equally full of praise and gratitude for her return to work.

So who wins if you win?

Who is affected by the things that you do or the things you do not do? The bible makes me understand that as a good Christian, you don’t live for yourself. You have something inside you that makes your life affect others positively or otherwise. You are a champion and a hero to someone.

God’s word says;

‘You are the light of the world, a city set upon the hill cannot be hidden.’ Matthew 5:14

Your life is not hidden, live as one that is being watched. Live as one that has a lot to offer your world, known and unknown because if it goes well for you, many people will be touched and if otherwise, many people will equally be touched.

Finally, Eddie and I recently discovered that we do not need to run our side business anymore if we don’t want to – but we thought about this issue of impact. – ‘who wins because we win and who loses because we stop something?’. On the basis of that thought, we keep pressing on as there are many lives to affect and darkness to dispel with our light.

I will encourage you to push till you win because, there are many people who will win just because you do!

God is on your side!

PB

I saw a post that got me thinking today.

The post said..”It never gets easier, you just get better.”

As I thought about this quote I realised that I have gone through some stages in life where I thought I wouldn’t be able to cope but I did and even got through them smiling. One of those stages was when I was a working mum with two young kids. My daily schedule was unbelievable and I was equally extremely busy in my service in church. I look back at that time now and wonder how I did it. It never got easier, but I just got better at scheduling and doing everything I had to do, a day at a time.

Another thought was of our time in the cow farm. We were living in a very unconventional place for two professionals; miles always from civilisation, with a little boy who had no one to relate to but his parents and the cows! There was no electricity and every night we went to bed after spending some time in the dark or under the moonlight on rare occasions. We again had an impossible schedule of milking the cows, feeding them, taking care of them, then going on to the orchard to harvest alongside the farm owner. On the side, I was also expected to do some cleaning in the farmers house and supermarket with his wife. It’s very interesting that when we went back to visit the village and farm owner on a recent trip to Cyprus, I actually had great memories of that period in our lives and I realised that the tasks never got easier, but we just got better at managing the situation.

Lastly, still in line with that quote, I was talking to one of my gym teachers recently and asked about her daughter whom she was pregnant with a few years ago. I was in her class when she was pregnant with her little one and was shocked to be told the little girl had started school! The girl is now in primary school, and mum confirmed she’s over six years old now. I was seriously taken aback! I realised that I have been exercising for an average of 3 times a week for over 6 years…however, I realised as well that it never got easier as I stepped out of bed to either go to class or go for a run in the morning, …I just got better at managing myself and focusing on the reason why I do what I have to do.

All these thoughts made me also think of our daily Christian disciplines and realised that it never gets easy to wait for or on God, but we just get better at it as time goes on and we choose to develop our spiritual lives.

The word of God says,

‘But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.’ Isaiah 40:31

Waiting upon the Lord helps strengthen us daily and we get better at that as we walk with the Lord. Will there be challenges on the way? Yes. Will some of them seem too hard to overcome? Yes. Can you overcome them? Yes. Is that because life gets easier? No! It’s because YOU got better!

Don’t keep wishing things get easier, focus on getting better and life will become easier.

God is on your side!

PB

The movie Chicken Run, an Award-winning DreamWorks animation tells the story of a brood of chickens doomed to a life of egg-laying on a Yorkshire chicken farm. When a flamboyant American rooster arrives on the scene, the hens hope he can teach them to fly to freedom. The story line has a number of great messages told through the eyes of a brood of chickens trying to break out of their chicken-wire world to escape their fate at the chopping block. The freedom leader, Ginger, comments in one of the scenes, ‘the fences are not just around us, they are all in your minds’. She reminds her fellow chickens that a bigger obstacle than the physical fences they are surrounded by are the mental fences that hold them captive.

In life, the mental fences we have allowed cage us in can be greater barriers to deal with than physical ones. Many people have fenced themselves in self doubt, procrastination, limiting beliefs, fear, uncertainty, a sense of failure, negative outlook and many more. All these are internal noises with the objective of keeping you stuck!

Many people today allow themselves stay stuck like the chickens in the movie, yet many of the limitations we face are never external. They live inside us and it will take a conscious effort to break out of those mental fences, particularly because they are unseen and can’t be easily detected by others but by ourselves if we choose to be genuine with ourselves.

I am reminded of a bunch of lepers in the bible that were trapped because there was a famine due to war. They decided one day that if they stayed where they were, they would die of starvation but if they went into the city and camped there, they may die in the hands of the army. They made a conscious choice to break out of their mental limitation and went into the camp and they experienced abundance because the Lord had gone ahead of them and removed all the obstacles. What if they didn’t make a move? What if they allowed themselves get paralysed by their mental fences, using their ailments and conditions as excuses? (2 Kings 7:3-7)

God’s word says;

‘This is what the LORD says: “I will go before you, and level the mountains. I will smash down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.” ‘Isaiah 45:2

God has promised to ‘go before us’ but we still have to follow him by breaking the cage of fear, uncertainty, paralysis and move forward otherwise, we can be stuck despite His great promises to us. It is our responsibility to act on the back of His words, we have to break out of our mental fences.

Mental fences will keep you stuck as long as you keep gazing at them. The antidote to being trapped by our mental fences is to create a compelling enough vision that, like Ginger the chicken leader and her brood of chicken friends, we are willing to resort to amazing measures to break out because the vision is strong enough to propel us to break any limitation; imagined or real.

You must be determined to take action so you can enjoy your future of possibilities and progress…so please don’t stay stuck.

God is on your side!

PB

I recently read a story that inspired and challenged me so I thought to share the same with you.
Here goes;
There was a man who had four sons, he wanted his sons to learn to not judge things too quickly so he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen. The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no – it was covered with green buds and full of promise.

The third son disagreed, he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.

The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfilment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but one season in the tree’s life. He told them that they couldn’t judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are, the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life – can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.

As I read the story, I remembered the bible verse that says;

“As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.” Genesis 8:22

Life is a combination of seasons and we need to understand that every season produces opportunities that we can enjoy and sometimes challenges that we can learn from. Whatever happens, we need to understand that no season lasts for ever so don’t give up when times are tough and a season seems unpleasant because there are better and brighter days ahead.

Giving up might sometimes seem easy, but if you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfilment of your fall.

My lesson for you today is that you should not fall into the temptation of judging your whole life by one difficult season. Do not allow the pain of one season destroy the joy of the rest because every tough season has a turning point, which leads to the next, better and brighter days ahead.

God is on your side!

PB