Welcome to the January 3rd edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
The Story Of My Week
Happy New Year
This week's post is going to be different.
I am doing a recap of the single most important lesson from all my key life relationships.
This is my way of doing what Moses calls "numbering our days"
I see it as a great way to kick me into the right perspective for 2021.
Things I Learnt
1-Spiritual: There is nothing that beats the value of running away from the noise of everywhere to hear how God is at work. I think COVID pushed everyone to noise-making overdrive and social media amplified it. By staying out of the noise, I was able to hear better, gain a better perspective, and see how God is really at work.
2-Physical: The first medicine for good health is the word that God has spoken over my body. Just like the doctor recommended a daily dose, I also need to take my daily dose of this. The word became “life to me and health to my body “ literally. And this is a lifelong practice to continue
3-Personal Leadership: Instead of going wide in learning, more transformation came from me when I went deep in very few areas. Going deep in those areas and working with just 2-3 core influences pushed me further faster.
4-Accountability Circle: There is a lot of value in having a band of brothers (or sisters) does life with you. I started the year in a paid mastermind which ended in the first half of 2020. I decided I was going to start one to make sure I continued growing through it. It turned out to be not as hard as I imagined. Bottom line, there are always people like me looking for opportunities to grow and learn in a structured setting. And I had to do was ask them...and a bit more (that’s something for another day)
5-Marital: It was Dave and Ashley Willis (The Naked Marriage Podcast) I first heard say couples need to go for counseling and therapy at least once a year. This is not for problem-solving but growth. 2020 was the first time my wife and I took the plunge. And it was worth its value in gold. We are already signed up for another one for 2021.
6-Parental: This was the year we started to create family traditions that we could engage the kids in. I can already see the impact in some conversations from my oldest child. Traditions normalize certain behaviors as part of the family culture. And that is what we need to continue doing
7-Finance: Maybe it was the birth of the baby, having a bigger family, or the whole COVID lockdown, but I took my eyes off my finances for a bit and before I knew it, the backup became the main cash. God stepped in to remind me that He is more concerned about providing for me and my family than I could be. By the end of the year, everything was back in place. But it started with my acknowledging and confessing my blunder to God and my wife.
8-Work: I try to always remind myself to look beyond work and deliverable when I deal with my colleagues. It's one of the ways I think I play the bigger game with the people I work with. The impact of living this hit me between the face this year. I was trying to get something done through another staff in one of my company's other country offices.
For some strange reason, I felt the staff was not giving his best output to the whole situation. I called him up at some point to tell him that I just wanted to check on his welfare and how he was doing. It was then he told me that he had tested positive for COVID.
Despite not showing symptoms, he had to self-isolate by moving out to stay alone at his mom's home. He was separated from his wife and toddler. Christmas was coming soon and he would be spending that all by himself.
Calling him to discuss more than work meant more to the situation. People bring their whole self to work and when a part of the whole self is not at work, it may not be a performance problem.
9-Social: One of the decisions I adopted years back is to know that I cannot be equally committed to all my friends. The ones in the most outer circle are my distant friends. But I always commit to sending them a personal birthday message every year. This year, I see that something as small as that matters to people. Let me share something one of them sent to me a while back
"Every year I read your birthday message with joy and with a heart full of praise to you. You never fail even when my parents forgot, You've always been the first followed by my wife. I really appreciate this, and I pray God will continue to bless you and family, and that you will never derail from the path God has set for you. Thank you and have a wonderful day."
It makes me want to keep at it.
10-Church: It is so easy to see the things that are not been done right in any local church. But this year, I actively had to stop my heart from been "poisoned" by what other people around me are saying about my local church. My first responsibility to any church I am part of is to bless it. If I see anything I think needs to be addressed, I typically communicate directly to the pastor. And I make it clear that it is my perspective which they are free to refuse and it would not stop me from supporting the ministry of the Church.
This is one of the ways I think I make the burden of leadership easier on the pastor - telling him or her my opinions and trusting their judgment to do what is in the best interest of the local church.
I guess the pressure of COVID was the itch that so many needed to voice dissent at every little misstep by pastoral leadership. I am not ignorant of leadership mistakes. But I had to remind myself that I serve my local church from my relationship with God and not the other way around.
11-Community: it is becoming increasingly difficult to live as a Christ-honoring Christian nowadays. I took some decisions because of this. I would not forward or broadcast any bad news - no matter how authentic it is. I leave that job to the news media. I will not eat at the faith or confidence of people. I would not lose my respect for any political office holder, no matter how badly they perform their duties.
My Christian duty is first to make their work as political office holders easier by speaking peaceably over the land. Living these was pretty challenging in the year. But it is part of the Cross that we carry as Christians in order to properly stand in the gap for our countries.
Postscript
May God bless and keep you. May He shine His light on you so that confusion fades in your every day decisions. May you stand with the truth of Jesus Christ, shining as light in this unique season of life (amen)
Tata,
Tola
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