What Peace-Eroding Thing Are You Holding On To?

While attending to a friend’s emotional and spiritual needs recently, I came across an insight truffle in Colossians 3:15 (you already know it’s AMP 😄):

“Let the peace of Christ [the inner calm of one who walks daily with Him] be the controlling factor in your hearts [deciding and settling questions that arise]. To this peace indeed you were called as members in one body [of believers]. And be thankful [to God always].”

‭‭COLOSSIANS‬ ‭3:15‬ ‭AMP‬‬

http://bible.com/1588/col.3.15.amp

Reading this verse got me doing an internal audit because I was going through something oddly similar to what my friend was going through. But I’d just come to a place of total surrender and trust in God and His sovereign will — I had just internally let go of something that was persistently costing me more than just my peace of mind.

Just before I sent the verse to my friend, I asked God, “Why did I not find this verse since? Why did I not find this formula earlier?” The response I got in my spirit was that I was the one persistently holding on tightly to something that even those around me could see was eroding my peace and steadily being a source of stress for me.

Since I’d already just gone through the process of recommitting that thing to God and being told that it was not for me, I was already at a place where I knew I had to let go.

Nonetheless, I realised that this fail-proof formula for we spiritual beings is something that we should continually apply to situations in our lives, especially at the very beginning. We should make continuous assessments of people, situations, things, relationships and engagements in our lives using this formula.

If it does not give you peace, it is not from God.

If it stresses or confuses you, it is not from God.

If it erodes your peace, it is not from God.

If it gives you headaches or heartaches, it is not from God.

If it causes you to go against your conscience, it is not from God.

If you have as much as a single persisting doubt, it is not from God.

If it goes against your doctrine as a spiritual being, it is not from God.

If you cannot find purpose and/or fulfilment in it, it is not from God.

If it suppresses or causes you to suppress your spirit or the Spirit of God in you, it is not from God.

Our God is a God of peace and order, not a God of confusion, stress or disorder.

Nothing in this life that erodes our peace should remain with us. We must take great care to not hold on to these types of things.

Stay blessed lovely people 😘.

What Are You Refusing to Come to Terms With?

Facing something squarely requires courage and faith, among other things.

Inner voice: Manuella, listen to me.
*blocks ears*
Inner voice: 😐
Me: I know what you want to say and I don’t want to hear it.
Inner voice: Well, I’m only telling you because I want you to get comfortable with the idea. And I want you to stop fighting it.
Me: God, why do I have to listen to this? 😭
Inner voice: Manuella, it’s your imminent reality; you can’t keep fighting it and running away from it. You can’t see it yet, and you don’t even want to because of fear!
Me: 🤦🏾‍♀️😢

Very vague, right? I know. The topic to which this conversation applies to — thankfully, no longer on a daily basis — is one that’s mortally personal to me 🙈. I don’t know if the conversation sounds familiar to you; if you’ve ever had to battle an inner voice with your own unbelief, denial and avoidance of something you sense is imminent. If you got a chance, you’d probably delay that part of the future.

For some people, it’s detaching yourself from someone or something or a process you know is toxic for you. For others, it’s having to make a really big decision that has a significant impact on your life or on others’ lives. For some others, it’s bursting your own bubble, knowing that you’ve got your head in the clouds when you ought to apply self-honesty and practicality to your situation. It could be anything! Whatever it is, you’re simply running away from it. We have that in common, stranger.

Your catalyst may be fear, it may be your rejection of the imminent, it could be anything else.

Your mind independently and uncontrollably meditates on it, only awaking your consciousness when you find yourself reflexively engaging the meditation.

What are we refusing to come to terms with? Because the farther we run away from it, the longer the distance we have to walk back to face it squarely and deal with it.

Self-Discovery: Ever Heard of “The Spirit-Controlled Temperament”?

If you were to wake me up and ask what my best book is, I’d say The Spirit-Controlled Temperament. It’s a life-changing book by Tim LaHaye. 

Wait o. All I’m doing here is sharing a bit of my journey of self discovery. 🙄 Don’t go and be looking for “So… what’s the moral of the story?”

Ok. So, what makes this book so fascinating? It helped me understand why I can come across as a grouch and sometimes embody a resentful, hard-driving, in short, Curtis Payne from House of Payne. It also made sense of why an unemotional and largely insensitive Curtis Payne can express so much concern for his loved ones, and be so concerned with social issues and others’ welfare. 

I don’t know if you like learning about yourself, but I do. Because even I surprise myself, at times. 

So, let’s dig in. 😁

Like I’ve said in one of my previous posts, I’m a choleric-melancholic, by nature. I’ll first break down the blend so you can understand why an undiluted combination of both can be lethal. 

Choleric

Oh, this is only in relation to me – for obvious reasons aka it’s my blog and I’m obviously using myself as a case study 🙄. I definitely won’t be telling you all my choleric and melancholy traits; just the ones that I find striking. 🙃

Ok. Stereotypically, a choleric is “hot, quick, active, practical, and strong-willed …. He is often self-sufficient and very independent. He tends to be decisive and opinionated, finding it easy to make decisions for himself as well as for others … By nature Cholerics have a serious emotional deficiency …. Choleric women may cry only when facing the most desperate circumstances.” 👀 (The Spirit-Filled Temperament, Tim LaHaye).

Here’s a screenshot:

🙊🤐

Now, my melancholy side.. 👀  

Melancholy

Tim LaHaye says the melancholy “… is perhaps the most dependable of all the temperaments, for his perfectionist tendencies do not permit him to be a shirker .…” In short, let me add a screenshot.

 
I’m not even going to bother to gloat 😏. 

Now, over to two key weaknesses 😩: “No one is more critical than the Melancholy. With unrealistic expectations of others, they cannot happily accept less than the very best.”

The Blend – ChlorMel

For those who don’t know, a temperament blend is the combination of an individual’s two temperaments; primary and secondary.

Hmmm.. The blend of my primary (choleric ) and my secondary (melancholy) is hypothetically the blackest sheep of the temperament blends. The “😧👎🏾”seem to be more than the “😀👍🏾” for the ChlorMels 😩. ChlorMels who are as natural and raw as them come… let me just grab one or more screenshots 🙈. #WeThankGodForTheHolySpirit!

 
I’m not apt to be a dictator 🙄. Hate? I don’t know about that 😕. Love? 🤷🏾😂 Oh, please! Yes, of course! 😁

 
👀🙈 Too. True.!

 

You see? It’s not all bad 😏. Tim actually says our strengths and weaknesses are kind of balanced on the scale… I don’t know how accurate that is 👀. 

Left to me, I would be unbothered about improving some of those weaknesses because they’re just mentally convenient for me. I would think to myself, Why would they think I’m too fussy? 🙄 Can’t they see that it could be better? On what planet does this arrangement even look attractive? 🙄.

Then there’s the part about speaking my mind, whether or not the other person wants to hear it. I would think sometimes, Why should I have to go through the stress of finding a nicer way to say that this design is ancient and obsolete and a waste of time and resources? Why can’t I just tell him that he looks like a frog when he smiles? 🙄

🙈🙈

What Next?

See, the way this book is written, the strengths are discussed before the weaknesses. I like to have my bad news/ reports first, then the good ones. But the book makes it clear that those weaknesses are part of our being; they don’t make us less human. 

I’ve learned to embrace my strengths and deal with my weaknesses 😏. The key to overcoming weaknesses is to first identify and acknowledge their existence, then find effective ways of doing something about them. They can be worked upon. I don’t know who you go to for help with things that are possibly beyond you, but I go to God. And so does Tim. 

The most fantastic feature about this book for me is that it gives me an insight into why and how I can retune my weaknesses into strengths with the help of the Holy Spirit. In all my years of ignorantly being indifferent about my choleric emotional deficiency, I would occasionally feel the need to find a solution. I didn’t find any. My complete solution isn’t here yet, though. And I don’t know if it will ever be complete. But I’m learning to tone down the self-sufficiency (Zechariah 4:6) and look to God to help me practise 1 Cor. 13 and Gal. 5:22-24 effectively 😌. 

I mean, it’s amazing that as a naturally hostile and resentful choleric, I’m incapable of holding a grudge or treating people accordingly, based on the wrongs I know they’ve done. Once a few hours have gone by, I find it impossible to program my attitude towards them to match their offence. 

Like I said though, I’m still in the testing stages; part of my revisions are to temper my melancholy “realism” with optimism so I don’t emote pessimism. More so, I’ve come to appreciate the relationships I have – oh, wait! I’m not laying down my life for any friend, as it says about melancholies in the screenshot up there 😐. As much as I have bitter complaints about life, I have no interest in sleeping in a coffin any time soon. Even my best friends already know that I love them 😂. 

Furthermore, learning to hold those choleric comments in is also a thing because, as a matter of fact, I don’t want someone else to say to me the things I sometimes say to others in my mind – except there’s an existent mutual agreement on 100% undiluted honesty (my way). I know words can be very hurtful so I try to isolate myself and keep quiet when I know my sarcasm or “razor-sharp, active tongue” – as Tim puts is – is about to go into overdrive. 

Life is interesting, though. What is stereotypically termed as your own temperament weakness may be a strength to someone else, and could cause them to appreciate that attribute in you, especially when you manifest it. One man’s meat is another man’s poison 😏. I’m not talking about a sarcastic or caustic tongue 🙄.

Anyhoo, I’m still a work in progress 😌. Got a long way to go with *some* missing fruits of the Spirit 😩. But God is faithful 😅. 

Until you see me again, ✌🏾 I ♥️ you! Or do I? 🤔🙄

You Are All The Fuel You Need

A lot of people want to be involved in your life… wait. Let me rephrase that to match reality. A lot of people want to feel relevant in your life; they see themselves as stakeholders. In my language, such people often “overpatakilise” themselves; it means that they often overstate their importance in your life. I have such people in my life too, but I don’t take kindly to them.

I don’t know if you have these oversized visions for your life, but I do. Additionally, I’m a believer of the principle that you don’t beat your own drums in public; you let your music speak for itself. If I’m going to do something that’s massive, I don’t want enemies of progress all over my business so, I won’t announce it.That’s one small part of the discussion, though. If you also have dreams/ visions that are larger than yourself and scare you, carry on reading, soulmate. 😍

When it gets down to the nitty-gritty of taking our visions from “virtual” to “reality”, it’s only natural to want or think that we need support from others. We want to tell those that matter to us about our visions because we want to carry them along on our journey. Consequently, we may start to seek validation for our dreams from these people.

Seeking validation from people is only you looking to get your dreams crushed and buried before they’re even developed. The vast majority of people you’re seeking validation from cannot even see where you’re going with your dreams! They cannot grasp it! It’s like trying to sell laser eye surgery to someone who is decidedly and conveniently short-sighted. It’s that pointless.

Depending on the kind of people you surround yourself with — or you find yourself surrounded by –, you may or may not get the support you want. The thing is that there will be people that will actually support your visions and will have the ability to visualise your dreams with you. However, as is everything with life, you may not be so fortunate to have those people in your inner circle. Matter of fact: you may not even know them yet; or you could, but just not consider them relevant to you. That’s your cue to re-evaluate.

On the other hand, there are people that you’d expect to “understand” you, at least, but they will disappoint you. They will help you “rationalise” your visions, telling you to be “more realistic”; they will find indirect ways of telling you to “forget it”. They mean no harm, often; they’re only looking out for you and hoping that you don’t have your head buried in the clouds. 

The majority of people you come across will tell you that your visions are impossible or that there are more “worthwhile” things to dabble into in the now. The uninterested bunch will tell you that your visions are a waste of time and unnecessary. Although I wonder what — if any — place of love these ones could possibly speak from, most are simply myopic or faithless. But which ones do you listen to?

This is where it gets tough. This is where you realise that you may have to start your trip solo and pick willing and necessary passengers along the way, since you only budgeted for yourself. You’re going to have to push yourself because no one else will. Matter of fact: it’s no one else’s job to push you.

Hey, that is not to say that every single person around you will either discourage you or fail to see where you’re going. It’s your job to apply discretion and recognise those who do; those are the people you need on your journey. When you grow weary from pushing yourself, they’re there as backup.

For those who cannot see your destination — even with a telescope — you’re better off without them. Saddling them on your journey is only loading your boat with dead weight. They’ll be there every step of the way to remind you that you’re wasting your time.

At the end of the day, you need to be attentive to those whom you need to journey with you; those who want to but may be dead weight; and those who don’t even want you to start the trip because it’s a waste. The people you surround yourself with will either build you up or tear you down. In so far as you can visualise where you’re going and your faith is alive, that is all the fuel you need.

P.S. Jesus is the sailor of my own boat. I’m just chilling, letting the breeze blow away my anxieties… beneath my aviator shades. 😎

Until you see me, ✌🏾

Life: Flights & Checked-In Luggage

There are some many aspects of life that can be likened to an air journey. This is the scenario: you’re travelling relocating to another place; city, country, continent, planet, wherever. You need to pack the things that are important and virtually indispensable; it’s a one-way journey and, after all, you have limited baggage allowance.

The day of your trip is here. You’ve done multiple headcounts of your belongings. Let’s hope you didn’t even forget anything. Time is far spent! You need to get moving!

Semi- finally, you get to the airport and you’re (please, imagine you are 😂) excited to enter a new phase of your life. You check in your luggage — remember that in these, are the absolute necessities, you can’t afford to forget anything important or valuable.

Do You Ever Just Sit and Ask Yourself, “What Have I Done Today”?

Starting the process of productivity can be difficult. This is how I sometimes get my own attention:

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Brain: ‘ello!
Me: …
*stands in front of the mirror*
Brain: Ha! You will soon reduce from a bottom size 10 to a size 8. ☹️
Me: What! 😰 No!
Brain: 😂😂😂😂 Go to the kitchen.
Me: 😫😩 Yes, ma.
*scrambles around for what to eat*
Brain: Oya, go to your to-do list.
Me: *opens Wunderlist*
Brain: What do you do with your time? 🙄
Me: 😐😑
Brain: 😪 Which one are we starting with?
Me: 😫 Everything.
Brain: God, we need help. 😪

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