Can You Really Navigate Life on Your Own?

Can You Really Navigate Life on Your Own?

Is Your Situation A Surprise?

Would it occur to you that between you and someone who created the blueprint for your life, you’re the only one that could be surprised by anything that happens?

Think of it. You write a script for a production and in the middle of the action, should/would you be surprised at the unravelling of events? For something you wrote?

Then why would

What if I Told You Anxiety is a By-Product of Self-Sufficiency?

I had a friend who tried to get me to see the insight in some verses from Matthew 6 because I was struggling financially at the time and all I did was worry in between prayers. Precisely, those verses were Matthew 6 vs 25-34. I’ll put a link here since the verses are too many to paste here: Matthew 6 vs 25-34 (AMP).

As a realist, I tried to think out all the possible avenues from which money could spring forth. All of them were dry, void. I had to refocus on God since there was no other person standing with me in that darkness.

What my friend told me at the time was that I shouldn’t worry about the things over which I have no control. Those are the very things that I shouldn’t even attempt to think through; those are the things that I should commit to God ab initio. So I turned to prayer. But I found myself caving in under the pressure of physical demands for money that I didn’t have. I kept circling back to ground zero. It became a depressing cycle.

Although I didn’t read between the lines of the verses preceding 33 and didn’t get this insight at the time, I had to learn to look to just God since there was no one else. I told myself God wasn’t sleeping. That He saw how messy things were and all the threats facing me. Some way, somehow, He came through just *in* time.

Now, the insight I’m getting from all the verses here is that first and foremost, we need to REMEMBER that God created everything before man; He knew that every creation of His must be fed and nourished somehow. He made provisions for every single living thing He created, including man.

Since God put everything else in place before setting man as Lord over those other creatures and He didn’t starve those creatures, He won’t let us starve. Also, remember that God made provision for every single creature in the biological food chain.

God essentially set a table before us (Psa. 23 vs 5); our cups are running over; our heads are anointed with oil. Verse 33 of the Matthew 6 talks about everything else falling in place on the condition that we seek God FIRST. God sets the table before you come to Him. He knows you are coming. But He’s waiting for you to come to Him first, instead of trying to find the table in the darkness on your own. The light to your path is on that table you’re trying to find on your own. However, just like man was yet to come alive until God breathed into him, the candlelight on that table will not be lit until God lights it up so that you can use it to find your way to the table from His feet.

There is abundance on that table. Whether we choose to go to the table and sit — first having turned to God in total surrender and subjecting ourselves to total reliance on Him — or we stay away and say we don’t need Him or His provision — because, hey, we know the ropes and all about being independent and enterprising — is now left to us.

God has already made the provision. You either humbly approach the throne of grace and faithfully get on the path to that table or you can keep bothering about how you’re going to feed past today. Confident peace in an omniscient and omnipotent God or anxiety in your own shortsighted abilities, which one?

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 😘.

Can You Conjure The Visible With The Invisible?

I was reading a plan on YouVersion some days back and Hebrews 11 vs 3 was one of the readings. At first, it seemed like one of those verses you scratch your head trying to find deeper meaning to. Here, see for yourself:

“By faith [that is, with an inherent trust and enduring confidence in the power, wisdom and goodness of God] we understand that the worlds (universe, ages) were framed and created [formed, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose] by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”

‭‭HEBREWS‬ ‭11:3‬ ‭AMP‬‬

http://bible.com/1588/heb.11.3.amp

I love how this verse may seem complex and void of applicability prima facie. But here’s what I’m getting from it: there is clearly MORE to life than what we see or perceive with our senses.

In the beginning, God called forth things that were invisible to make things that we still see millenniums after. God called forth the first man into being; He did not pick anything from

Would You Really Give Your Throne Up?

Imagine you’re a prince/princess and I just show up intending to take your throne from you. What would you do? Would you walk away or would you stay and fight for your throne?

If you haven’t come across James 4:7, lemme put it here for you real quick:

So submit to [the authority of] God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him] and he will flee from you. (Amplified Version)

Oh, how I love this verse!!!!

RESIST the devil! Listen, James did not say “run away”; he did not say “avoid”. He said “RESIST”, meaning, stand your ground!

See, you get a new house — the house of your dreams — with your life savings and then strange spirits begin to

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? 🤔🙄

Unnecessary, Null & Void Shouts

I was in a church service – or should I say, heaven knows how many I’ve been in 🙄 – where screaming at the top of your lungs was the apparent guarantee that your prayer will be answered.

I don’t know what spirituality culture we… wait. I don’t even know who the “we” are because I would never advocate for such. I don’t know where those who teach us to scream at the top of our lungs if our prayers are to be answered in a congregational church service learned it from. 😐 I’ve actually tried to figure it out, but I can’t. 

For me, there are health inconveniences that come with screaming at the top of my lungs in a place with auditorium-level acoustics, along with at least 200 other people screaming. It’s like grinding my teeth when my gums are sore. My ears feel tingly, I squint and have spasms from the deathly shrieks, my head is likely to start banging, and you still want me to join the screaming amidst all those reactions from my body? 😐

That’s just me. 

That this screaming and shouting of “amen” and whatever else the speaker asks the congregation to scream is made out to be their tickets to answered prayers, is problematic. We are told, “If you can shout the loudest ‘hallelujah’…”; “If you can shout a thunderous ‘amen’…”; “If your ‘amen’ can swallow that of your neighbour…”. 😐 It becomes a battle of voices. Hypothetically everyone wants their shout to swallow the ones they can hear. That’s the first part.

The second part of this problem is that a lot of these people are doing no more than plain shouting. There is no faith behind those shouts. The goal of the shouter is simply to swallow the other voices; they forget that they need to ignite their faith for their prayers to actually be answered, as opposed to thinking that swallowing the other voices will do it. They’re so carried away by supposedly impressing the heavens with the volumes of their voices that there is no faith to catapult that prayer into takeoff. Prayer without faith is pointless; it’s void.  

That is the problem I have with this shouting business in churches – void and faithless shouts to God. 

The other minor problem I have is the mentality that you need to shout before God can hear you. What the what?! God is not deaf that He cannot hear you! Why do we need to scream, then? Even when we don’t speak out in our moments of weariness and hopelessness, God hears and sees the thoughts of our hearts. He knows what we want before we even ask! Where then did we get the idea that we need to scream if He is to hear us?

Believe it or not, some church leaders have good motives behind getting the congregation to scream – they believe it gingers the congregation, some believe it wakes the congregation up, others believe it’s an effective way to get the otherwise apathetic or minimally active members of the congregation to pour their hearts out to God. Some other church leaders just like noise – maybe for the ostensible buzz, or due to a warped understanding of God’s hearing abilities. 

I actually hate praying in public or around other people – I get distracted by the noise from their loud prayers and chants. I sometimes struggle to hear my own self amidst all that noise and raucousness. 

Generally, I have nothing against screaming to God – be it in moments of emotional tension or enthusiasm. I do it at times. However, do it where you wouldn’t be selfishly inconveniencing others. Even in a congregation, there will be people who would rather you don’t scream. It startles some, it unsettles some, it irritates some, it gingers others. More importantly, whether you’re screaming your prayers or not, let faith be in the mix or you’re wasting all that energy. 😕

That’s all for today folks! 😁

P.S. I think I might start saying “I ♥️ you” at the end of my posts. It’s something I’ve picked up from this person I dutifully follow on IG – Professor Phanor. 

Until you see me again, ✌🏾. I ♥️ you!

1 Cor. 14: Did Sexism Have Some of Its Roots in the Early Church?

At first, I thought Paul was just occasionally chatting breeze, but I realised that it’s much deeper than Paul, himself.

First things first, this goes beyond Paul or 1Cor. 14; women being barred from public participation in church, was a practice of the early church.

P.S. I read from the YouVersion bible app, and I study and read mostly in the AMP (Amplified) version by The Lockman Foundation.