“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde
The greatest challenge you have to face in this life is not the devil but being yourself in a world where everyone wants you to be someone else.People want you to be what they want.
Sometimes our parents wants us to be what they couldn't be in their lifetime,i have met young men and women,who are in college living their parents dreams,studying a course because its what their parents wanted,dating a boy because he is your parents choice.
Living someone else life and not yours.Imagine how it would look like,at the end of your life you realize you have been living another persons dreams.
I would like to say to you that you are living in a box and you need to break out of it and start to live the life that God has planned for you,even before the foundation of the world,his purpose about you is very clear and he wants you to begin walk in line with his purpose.
Your father had his time and purpose,now is your time and the decisions you make now will determine if you will live a fulfilled life,you were not created to live the dreams of others but God created you to fulfill your dreams and cause others to fulfill theirs also.
lets share some ways you can breakout of the box;
BE YOURSELF
What people can't understand they always fight and try to destroy.
Jesus when he was in this world,the Pharisees could not understand him,they tried to stop him by caging him,but they couldn't.
They called him all kinds of names to discourage him but Jesus knew who he was and lived the very reason he was born.Sometimes we allow people to discourage us and we loose confidence in ourselves.
You need to realize that you are special and God created you for a unique purpose,you don't have to be normal and be like everyone else,be who God created you to be and do what he called you to be,refuse to be a copy,be a maker of history,be different,be yourself.
Don't be afraid of the faces of people,keep your eyes up and not on the faces of men,let God be God,for he is able to do just what he said,be yourself.
People are envious that's why they discourage you,they see that you got to be brave and courageous to take the steps you take,so because of the fear that you will become greater and you are different to try to destroy you,stand strong and stay at being yourself.
You are a star..
CELEBRATE YOURSELF
I believe that you have no right to love others if you cant love yourself.
The bible says esteem others above yourself,doesn't mean that you should loose your self esteem,but that as you keep your esteem in tact,esteem others.
A man that has no respect for himself cannot respect others,you can only give what you are,people who disrespect others actually have no respect for themselves,so i encourage you to learn to love yourself,give yourself a treat,buy a gift for yourself.
Stop playing a pity party,people are usually attracted to happy people and not sad people,the reason you don't have friends is because you never smile,you always put up a sad face and that scares others,put a smile on your face,be happy,celebrate you and see how it will attract people to you.
Sometimes its so easy to appreciate others but you feel guilty when appreciated by others,celebrate yourself,celebrate the gift that you are,thank God for you,you spend your time thanking God for others but you,spend sometime to thank God for you,you will only attract what you respect.
RELEASE YOURSELF
Take out time to forgive those people who hurt you in the past,i have taught that when you hold un-forgiveness in your heart,you have only caged yourself and not the person who hurt you.
I know its hard and its not easy,but you have the power to let go,you can do it,release yourself,give it a try and see how free you would be,when you forgive the one that hurt you.
Forgiveness brings freedom,total freedom,so let go and let god,when you hold on to the hurt,you restrict yourself and put your life on a hold,release yourself and be free totally from pain and hurts,you have the power.
ENCOURAGE YOURSELF
At sundry times we wait for others to make us feel good,most of what we do we always seek the complement of others "what did they say;what will my mother say;what will my friends say" stop doing things hoping to be encouraged by others.
If you can't encourage yourself no one will,because no one really understands you,be like David who in the time of a challenge,the bible says and "David encouraged himself in the lord" stop waiting for others,start speaking sweet words of encouragement to yourself,start prophesying to yourself.
Be the first to buy your product,be excited about yourself,nobody will celebrate your gift before you,so be encouraged,"be strong in the lord and in the power of his might.." encourage yourself.
I dare you to breakout of your box,come out of the shell,start doing things the way God has gifted you,don't be a copy,be an original.Rise up and shine,the stage is set and the moment you have been waiting for has come,everyone is waiting for you to come forth,arise and shine.
Breakout of the box,your box of insecurity,fear of the unknown,lack of confidence in yourself,your fears that has made you crippled that you cannot move to where God wants you to be,breakout and surprise yourself,start doing what you couldn't do,you are who God says you are,you are Gods property.
I remenber a few years ago,I and my friend were going to take a flight from Abuja in Nigeria to Warri,my town and for the first time my seat was just right at the emergency exit and I remenber as the hostess began to give instructions in case of any troubles what we needed to do,cold ran through my body with fear,just as she said,"in the case of a crash landing” someone else said “I reject it in Jesus name,we don’t need it” good prayer,but it was serious for me because I knew I had the responsibility with me to do something,in the case of any trobles,but thank God we landed safe.
An emergency exit in a structure is a special exit for emergencies such as a fire: the combined use of regular and special exits allows for faster evacuation, while it also provides an alternative if the route to the regular exit is blocked by fire, etc.It is usually a strategically located (e.g. in a stairwell, hallway, or other likely place) outward opening door with a crash bar on it and with exit signs leading to it. Emergency exit is vital for safety in the event of a fire outbreak and for easy evacuation of people out of the building. This is not a show of fear but wisdom,there are people who believe that when you as a child of God put such things in your building you are only attracting what you are trying to avoid,I would like to help such people think in the right direction. We say in my country “Prevention is better than cure” it is wisdom to have an emergency exit in your house,its for your safety and the safety of those in your household,not just exits but fire extinguishers and all the other safty equipments in the event of fire. We also need to build an emergency exit in our lives,this is important for safety in our relationships and businesses.We must learn to apply wisdom and faith in our dealings with other people. We need to clearly distinguish between faith and wisdom and foolishness.I see people confuse faith a lot for something else,sometimes we act in foolishness and call it faith.But we must have understanding in our dealings we must be wise. Faith is acting on the word of God.The word of God is the basis of our belief,we act on what we believe and that is the word of God.So it is vital that we understand scriptures clearly before we apply them. Wisdom is the application of understanding,as we know,knowledge is the acquisiton of information and understanding is the ability to put the information to their right places and wisdom is the actual application of understanding. So just having knowledge doesn’t make you wise.Experience is important for wisdom,experience can only be developed with time in practice,so as I use the understanding I gathered in reality,experience is built and with time wisdom is developed.Wisdom doesn’t come with prayer but with practice,putting to use what you know. Presumption,which is the the act of presuming,the assumption of something as true,but lets understand the word assumption,which is the act of taking for granted or supposing. Foolishness is resulting from or showing a lack of sense;ill considered;unwise;lacking forethought or caution. Some practice we call faith is total presumption or foolishness and I would like to give clear examples from scriptures some of the things we do out of lack of understanding but call faith and real life stories to also help; The bible in mark 16:18 says they shall pickup serpents and it shall not hurt them,some persons have gone on to the streets to start picking up serpents but got bitten by the serpents and some ended up dying that’s foolishness,because the bible never said,go out and pick up serpents,the emphasis was not on the serpent but the power of God that they receive.
I remenber some years ago how a man jumped into a lions den in the name of the lord and the lion ate him up after first taking out his private part,that’s another foolishness because even daniel didn’t opt to be thrown in there.
I remenber years ago,a friend has this dog and the dog was barking in a strange way,so he went out and shouted at the dog,with the finger pointed at the dog,saying in the name of Jesus shut up,and the dog bit his finger,foolishness in display.
I am not saying faith doesn’t work,but all I am saying is that we must be wise at all times,there are some things we can avoid and sort out by our selves,we must learn to use our discretion.
Sometimes we forget that the brain we have in our heads come from the lord and not from the devil.our brain is given for use,you can not understand mathematics by praying but by study,the holy spirit will not remind you of what you don’t already have some knowledge of,nobody is dumb,we all have the potentila to be better at anything if we can give ourselves to study,that is not to say we don’t need God but that God has given us all we need for life and Godliness.
We must put everything in its right place.We must be men in application.
Its not a display of fear to have an emergency exit in your life,its not a second plan but a plan with the main plan.Its not a second option but it goes with the original option.
Most people fail in business because they assume that everything will be okay we don’t have to worry about anything.
- You are about to get into partnership with someone you know nothing about,and you are not doing the right things by getting a lawyer and writing the necessary agreements,but you assume he is a good guy and wont give you any problems.
- A lot of people marry without taking certain things about eachother into deep consideration,you just assume he or she will be ok with time.
- You change jobs without checking details about the new company,you just assume without doing the checks and you think its ok,when something goes wrong we cry God help.
Jesus said “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him” Luke 14:28-29 ; starting is not the issue but finishing,some people will say,leave it for the lord or when we get to that bridge we will cross it,well what if the bridge collapse and you can’t cross or crash with it?
- You employ people without necessary qualifications but plenty of sentiments,maybe he is your relative sometimes they are the ones who run down the business,you got to put up your emergency exit.
What causes most accidents on the roads today? because people disobey traffic signs and not care about the traffic lights and drive when they should stop,then an accident,don’t worry lets go by faith,its foolishness.
We got to be wise,wisdom is profitable for all things,add wisdom to your faith,faith doesn’t walk alone there are other virtue that is necessary to add to faith to make it more effective.
Add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge self control and to self control perseverance and to perseverance godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love,it ends there because love is the totality of the christian life and if all these things abide in you,you will neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our lord Jesus Christ,for he who lacks these things is shortsighted,even to blindness.
Faith doesn’t walk alone if you must be a success in life and in your walk with God you must add these things to your faith.
watch out for continuation.
