Musing...becoming a better me.: May 2012

Thursday, May 24, 2012

THE CHANGE IS INSIDE OF ME

Truth be told, the change I seek is inside of me.

I have long waited for a messiah, to begin the revolution that will change the status quo.

The longer I waited, the more desperate I became and the worse the situation.

How long O’God will things remain like this?

When will we begin to see the difference?

The more I cried, the longer it seemed I will remain where I was.

Until the light shone and I realized I could no longer sit on the sidelines waiting.

I had to jump into the fray, play my part and believe the best.

Now I choose to stand and speak against injustice. I will not be silent when I see a wrong being done or said at work, home and anywhere I find myself.

I will not keep quiet and go to my comfort zone to vent.

The change cannot come when I cover a wrong, protect the lazy or incompetent worker, support corruption, keep the change rather than retire it, tell a lie to cover my tracks, and so on and so forth.

I will not be on Radio castigating the Government while in my professional association, I am no better.

I will not be in public shouting about changing things in Nigeria, whilst I remain too ‘big’ to maintain cordial relations with my neighbours and thereby make conditions better in my neighbourhood..

I will not be a deacon in church whilst I deprive thousands their daily bread via pen robbery.

I will not be the parent paying and supporting my children in exam malpractice.

I will not be the one shunting the queue.

I will be good to those I meet, helpful where help is needed and polite even to children.

I may be vilified for this, but it won’t matter whose ox is gored.

I will speak up when and where it matters.

I may be called ‘ase ju’, ‘mary amaka’, or even ‘ITK’, but I will remain on my watch because the change I seek begins with me!

Monday, May 21, 2012

7 THINGS I’VE LEARNT IN VICTORIOUS PRAYING WOMEN MINISTRY AKA VPWM

When I started attending the meetings of VPWM, I was not very committed and I wasted a lot of time before God called me to order.

Since then, He’s taught me a couple of destiny defining principles which I share here.

1. Be yourself, especially in the Presence/House of God.

In the presence of God, there is Liberty. [1Cor 3: 17] You can be yourself without excuses.

Remember, they were NAKED AND NOT ASHAMED. [Gen 2:25; emphasis mine]

2. Praise looks good on you.

Whenever you are opportune to be where God is being praised, ensure you do it with all your might because He inhabits the praises of His people. [Ps 22:3 KJV]

God loves it when we praise Him and we touch His garment when we do.

3. Look unto God and not unto man.

When you are privileged to be part of a community of believers, seek the face and presence of God therein and not the approval of man.

Don’t get involved in the talk-talk or gossip that leads to offence. Rather, keep yourself, your heart and mind open to receive from God.

Expect to meet with God every time…and you will!

4. See and respect the anointing even if you don’t like the person or you know their weaknesses/past.

Do not allow familiarity with a person blind you to the anointing.

You may know the man or woman of God from way back but once there is an anointing on them, they are no longer who you used to know.

While saying “Is Saul also among the prophets?”, you may just miss your prophetic blessing. [1Sam 10:9-11 (AMP)]

God is still using the seemingly foolish things of this world to confound the wise.

5. God is present in every congregation where His name is called.

When you enter any gathering of believers, be sensitive to God’s presence because He is there in every little thing. He’s speaking from the Ushers, Praise & Worship, Testimonies, Message, benediction and The Grace.

He is speaking throughout but only the one listening will hear Him. [Ex 20:24b (NKJV)]

6. Friends can become your distraction.

Once you get into the assembly of believers, be on your own.

Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by those close to you.

Learn to determine your level of friendships by how the person helps you stay on the path of destiny.

Your friend can make or mar your destiny, choose wisely. [Prov 13:20, Prov 27:17]

7. See people through God’s eyes.

God does not judge or bless the way we do.

What we use to determine who gets promoted is not what God uses and until we begin to see through God’s eyes, we will end up displeasing God with our actions, inactions, speech and thoughts.

The Lord does not see as we see. [1Sam 16:7b]

You may think you know a person’s pedigree but you do not know their “spiritgree” nor the level of their SQ (Spiritual Quotient) or DQ (Destiny Quotient). [1Sam 9:21; 10:1]

Monday, May 14, 2012

MARRIAGE IS LIKE A CELL PHONE GAME

26.04.2012

Playing games on cell phones can become quite addictive, and very quickly too. It can take your time and even become a distraction.

A couple of days ago, I was thinking about it and I realized how like those cell phone games a marriage was.

There are different types of games, like LG’s zoozoo club, battle reverse, Nokia’s Bubblet, Beach Rally, etc. For different games, there are different techniques and different instructions.

This is the same for marriages too. Every marriage has its own unique set of instructions and techniques.

The background and orientation of each party is different and so are their personalities and values.

Therefore, one should not expect a strong willed man from an affluent background and a loving family to act in the same way as a strong willed man from a lower-income background and a broken home.

Each of us comes into marriage with our unique characteristics, likes and dislikes.

To excel in marriage, we would therefore, need to study and understand the unique characteristics of one another as partners.

When you want to play a cell phone game, the first thing you do is … read the instructions.

We may not understand it fully but at least, we get an idea of how to proceed. We may make mistakes along the way but we can always seek help and navigate back to the right lane.

This is the novice stage where mistakes abound and high scores could be rare.

In marriage, we also have this stage where we rub each other the wrong way more often.

Studying our uniqueness in marriage means that we not only can understand ourselves better, but that we can also deal with the challenges whenever we encounter them.

In my experience, you do not become an expert or start excelling in a game immediately you start playing it. As you continue playing regularly, you find yourself getting better and better. The more you play, the more you enjoy playing and the higher your scores.

If you give up, you will never improve your game or get good at it.

The more you play, the more you discover better ways of playing and improving your scores.

In marriage, the more willing you are to work at it, the faster you improve on your relationship building/problem solving techniques and the better your marriage relationship gets.

If you give up your game too early, you will never get the hang of it. And too early means different time spans for different people; it depends on the personalities and orientations/backgrounds of each individual.

In fact, giving up means you will never know how good you would have been in the game.

The longer you play, the better you play and the better you play, the better your results get.

To stay in the game for as long as it will take for you to do well in it takes determination and a form of willpower, but without it, there can be no success.

As in the game, the harder and more determined you are to work at your marriage with the attendant positive results, the more you will enjoy your marriage relationship.

Your victories may be little and not even often enough, but hang in there, whether in the game or in your marriage and soon enough, you will become an expert!

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