It starts from the mind

Romans 12: 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. NIV

The mind is one part of the human system that controls the rest of the person. Whatever we achieve, in the true sense of achievement, starts from our minds. And if we fail in anything, we must know that that failure started in our minds. That is why we must take control of our minds.

Whatever your mind says is possible, you can achieve it if you don’t give on the way. You may encounter difficulties but you will find solutions to the problems that come up. 

If you want to change something around you, change it in your mind. We do things that our minds tell us are good. If you change your perception about anything, you will start reacting to that thing differently. This happens to us most of the time unconsciously. For example, we refuse to eat certain foods we liked in the past when we hear about how dangerous that food could be to our health.

We can take control of our mind by consciously telling ourselves what we want to do. If you have a tough task to perform, tell yourself it is easy. Your mind will find easy ways of accomplishing the task. But if you continue thinking about how difficult it is, you will never achieve anything.

Take control of your mind and you will succeed.

Opposition: Another thing you don’t want to meet on the road to success

Gen 26:21  And they dug another well, and they strove for that also. And he called the name of it Opposition. MKJV

In the previous post we talked about disputes as one of the things we must deal with when moving towards success. It is easier handling disputes when compared to opposition. Disputes are like floods you wade through; opposition is like a wall. Once you hit that wall there are only three things you can do: take a U-turn which means giving up, change course to see if you can get past the wall, or break through the wall advance.

Isaac moved from the well known as disputes only to meet with opposition after digging another well. That is what happens in our quest for success. There are some people who will oppose us for various reasons.

Don’t be surprise that people oppose you because you are about to succeed. Your success is someone’s defeat. No matter what, life is a competition. Someone must be first to reach the finish line. Some people will always want to pull others back thinking that will give them the opportunity to succeed.

Others oppose out of envy. Your success exposes someone else’s slothfulness and they will oppose you just to preserve their integrity. 

Now no matter how the opposition is, no matter how thick the wall, you must find a way of moving on. You might decide to change direction, move along the wall until you find a way past it. No matter how long the wall of opposition, it has an end. But changing direction calls for a lot of patience.

You might decide to break through the wall. In this case you need to be strong and resolute. You need strong faith. No wall of opposition can resist the power of faith.

But there is one option you must not choose if you want to succeed: going back. You are destined to succeed. NEVER GIVE UP.

Be Smart, and Not Necessarily Fast

Ecclesiastes 9:11 I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.

Every day of our lives we have to make decisions which affect the rest of our lives. The choices we make determine how successful our future will be. That is why we must be smart in these choices.

Now, being smart has nothing to do with being fast. You can be fast and yet unwise. For example, when a fish sees a bit of food in the water around, it only wants to get it as fast as possible. But that bit of food might well turn out to be bait. The race is not for the swift. It is about making the best choice.

There is no need rushing to take a decision whose consequences you can’t tell. It is smarter to pause for a second to consider the pros and cons of that decision before jumping. Let’s consider this example.

There are two offers, one worth $1000 for one month and the other $200 a week for six months. The fast person will go for the $1000 because $200 a week makes 800 a month. But the smart person will go for the $200 a week because he will be making a total of $4800. There is no guarantee that you will the $1000 offer will continue.

Let us consider the decisions we make on a daily basis very well. Patience is a virtue. When opportunities come, we must look at the carefully before making the choices. The race is not for the swift. Watch out for the opportunity that is yours.

Fear Not

I Sam 17: 8 – 11 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, "Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us." Then the Philistine said, "This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other." On hearing the Philistine's words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

There is nothing more fearful that fear. When you are afraid, you cannot do what even a child can do. But if you are courageous, you will overcome even the fiercest of the enemies. In the story of David and Goliath, the tactics the enemy (Goliath) used was fear. His appearance alone was so fearful to scare the king away. All the men of Israel took to their heels when they heard Goliath speak.

It was so surprising that they could not see that Goliath, because of the sheer weight of his armory was more vulnerable than any person around. Goliath was just a moving mass of iron, as useless as the word. Yet his appearance frightened kings.

It took a teenage boy to see what others did not see. This teenage boy, David, used the simplest of weapons and old huge Goliath died like a miserable bird.

That is how your challenges are. You don’t need sophisticated weapons to overcome them. All you need is a simple strategy. Tackle the problem from where it is easiest to do. David hit Goliath on the forehead which was not covered. That was the easiest spot.

Have the faith and courage of David as you face the challenges. No matter how big they are, there is an easy spot. Focus on this spot and begin from there. You will overcome.

Take Up Your Challenge

2Co 12:7 - 9 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

There is no glory without a cross; there is no success without a challenge. Every position we occupy in life comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. Accepting the advantages will mean accepting the inconveniences as well. Refusing to accept the challenges will mean denying the opportunities and the benefits.

That is why you must always accept to face the challenges that come your way. There are certain challenges that will not go away as we will want it. You can only manage them. That is what the thorn in the flesh mean.

These kinds of challenges are there to make us humble in the successes we make. Without them, there will be no meaning to life. Success in itself creates negative pride which leads to destruction. The challenges that come with success are guard rails that hold us in check so that we don’t go overboard.

Every leader has his own Judas Iscariot, in one way or the other. If you discover your Judas, then know that you really are in leadership. Just as Jesus did not throw out his Judas, but kept him in the fold even though he (Jesus) knew very well that Judas is the one going to betray him, you must also accept your challenges and move along with them.

God Has a Plan for You

Jeremiah 29:11. I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for.

Are you at a point where it seems your road is blocked and you really need to break through? Are feeling that all hope is gone and there is nothing you can do to change your predicament? There is hope for you. The situation you find yourself in today is not final. It is the beginning of the plan that God has for you.

The future is not as bleak as you will imagine it. There are many people who at once thought it was over for them, but the intervention of God made them realize that life is not just about feelings.

Joseph in the dungeon in Egypt thought that was his end. The dreams he had about being a king, to him, could no longer come to pass since he is now a condemned slave in a foreign land. But the hand of God lifted him from there and the unbelievable happened: a slave became a king in a foreign land.

At the crossing of the red sea, the down to earth practical Israelites knew that they were going to die, because the devil in form of Pharaohs army is after them and the Red Sea (not even a blue one) was before them. They saw no future for themselves. Even Moses was about to give up. His cry to God was out of desperation rather than faith. Yet the hand of God intervened and there was a future for them.

In the same way, your future is still assured even though you don’t know how. You don’t need to know how it will happen; you only need to wait to see it happen. Your horizon is limited by a lot of things, but God’s horizon is broader. When you come to the end of the road, don’t give up. There is song that says:

“You may not know how,
You may not know when
He will do it again”

He has a plan for you. It is a good plan. God would not take his time to create you just for fun. Don’t take yourself for fun.

Let Go

Heb 12:1 Therefore since we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us

As we journey through life, we pass through many situations and challenges. These surely leave various impressions on us. We form habits, some good some bad. There are certain habits that we know are bad and we must just let go. But because they are habits, we find it difficult to let go. There is nothing best for us but just to let go. Letting go will free us and give us the opportunity to move ahead without any sense of guilt coming from self examination.

There are other things that, though they are not bad in themselves, prevent us from forging ahead in order to achieve our goals. That is where the difficulty comes. But, in order to move ahead, we must let go.

The passage chosen for today’s message talks about weights that draw us back. Those who desire to move ahead must by necessity throw away the weight they carry. When you watch athletes in an Olympic race, especially women, you realize that they throw away all the heavy jackets they wear just before the race starts. This they do to give them extra advantage to run as fast as they can. You cannot imagine any athlete running in suits today.

That is what your life is about. There are certain things in your life today; there are certain people you are holding to, there are several things that you consider good for you; but those are the very things, the very people that draw you back or slow you down. For the sake of progress, tell yourself when you realize: “It is time to let go”.
Take time and search for such unnecessary baggage and LET THEM GO.

Watch Out

1Peter 5:8 Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

Don’t be deceived that you will have a smooth road as you move towards your goals. Those who think like that usually get the rudest shocks of their lives when they come against roadblocks in their way. There is one thing you must know: achieving your goals will create a disadvantage for someone. If you are that person, you will do everything possible to stop the dream. That is why you need to wide awake as you make your journey through life.

The road of real life is not smooth; it is rough and tough. There are many traps on the way. Watch out for the baits in these traps. The aim of the trap is to stop you from going ahead and if possible draw you back, in fact destroy your dream. The bait has a simple aim: lure you into the trap. You must watch out for baits because not bait is ugly. If you want to more explanation about this, look at a mouse when caught in a trap.

Not all offers that come your way in life are good for you; in fact the same offer might be good for someone else but not you. Taking a particular offer might mean giving up your dream. The story of hungry Esau is a great illustration. When Jacob made the offer of food for birthright, Esau did not take his brother serious. He only realized the seriousness when he lost his blessing.

As you fight on, watch out for such deals that will affect your future. Avoiding such deals and forgoing such some obvious advantages of today will guarantee a brighter tomorrow.

In a race between the tortoise and the dog, the tortoise made sure to scatter juicy bones on the road knowing very well that the dog will not like to leave those bones uneaten. By the time “fast dog” finished the juicy bones, “slow but smart tortoise” had crossed the finished line. Choose which one you want to be.

WATCH OUT.

Look Ahead

Luke 9:61 – 62. And another also said, Lord, I will follow You, but first allow me to take leave of those in my house. And Jesus said to him, no one, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

The story of Lot’s wife reminds us all about one thing. The past will make you freeze, to the point that you can’t move forward. That is why in your walk towards achieving your goals, you should seldom look back.

Life is a race. What this means is that until you cross the finish line, the distance covered is not as important as the one to be covered. One thing is certain about athletic races. Runners who look back too often mostly do not complete the race; even if they complete it is most unlikely that they will take the crown.

There are many reasons why you will want to look back. One of them is to see the successes you have made at a point in time. But your successes can constitute a drawback to your progress. There are many people who take pride so much in what they have achieved in the past that they forget about what they must do today. In the past are also your failures and regrets. Looking back refreshes all those memories which make progress difficult.

For that reason, once you have decided to do something, don’t look back. Look forward to. Concentrate on your aim and achieve it. Until you see the result you want in what you have started, don’t look back. Those who drive know that you cannot keep looking in the mirror as you drive. The result of that action is obvious: you will crush. But when you look into the windscreen, you see the road ahead.

Therefore let this be your motto: Forward ever.

Be Focused

Mat 14:28 - 31 And Peter answered Him and said, LORD, if it is You, tell me to come to You on the water. And He said, Come. And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But seeing that the wind was strong, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me! And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him; and said to him, Little-faith! Why did you doubt?

Doing a long term project comes with a lot of challenges. Once you decided on what to do, then you start receiving signals as to why you might not succeed. There are also signals about other options of doing the same thing. Those who are married will attest to the fact that after they made their decision on a particular person, other equally capable candidates came up; some of them even “better” than the person they have chosen. There are many people who fell time and time again to these “better” options.

All those signals and options are what we call distractions. You should be focused once you’ve decided to do what you want to do in order to avoid the distractions that come your way. In the Bible story above, Peter decided to walk on the sea. He started well and he was marveled by his own performance in the beginning. Then at a point he realized that he was sinking.

Why did Peter start sinking? The answer simply is that he lost focus. When he started walking on the water he was looking at his destination which is where Jesus was. That was his motivation for the project. But he took his focus away from the motivational factor and started looking at the distractions that surrounded him. Then he realized how impossible what he was doing was. One thing that might have made Peter to look at the winds was his friends back in the boat who were making all kinds of noise in amazement of what was happening.

Be assured that there will be a lot of distractions as you aim at achieving your long term goals. Don’t take your eyes off the target – your motivational factor. Don’t mind what people around you are saying so long as you know you are moving on the right track. You have a target; you have an aim; you must succeed. Be focused.

HAVE A BLESSED WEEK.

Please leave a comment if you’ve been inspired by this.