Welcome to the October 22nd 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.
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The Story of My Week
This was a bit of a challenging week for the family.
We face two strains.
One resolved itself before the end of the week.
And the second…we are still working and trust God through it.
By next week, we will have full clarity about where all things stand with it.
The interesting thing is that we are in a peculiar position.
We are worried that things may not work out the way we want and we are also confident in God’s ability to resolve all things to our benefit for his glory.
I’ll call it confident concern - we are confident in God’s ability even if our hearts still keep expressing concerns.
It’s not a lack of faith.
Rather, it’s a knowing that “this requires more than we can give”
We will continue to give it everything we have that can go into it.
We do that knowing that our best is not what will bring the results.
God will be the one to take our best and create the results that we pray for.
Yes, we are praying.
And we are doing.
You can also pray with us. We need all the support and encouragement we can get.
God will do all things according to His power at work in us in a way that honours and glorifies His Name.
Things I Learnt
1-Making the Now Sacrifices: During different conversations with my coach and spiritual director in the week, I decided to recalibrate some of my expectations of myself.
The first conversation was with my coach. I told him how I felt I needed to raise the level of my goals and targets in my practice.
His response was, “You can raise the bar, but at what cost?”
He said he knew I was committed to being fully present for my family at this stage of life. If I raised the level of what I expected from myself, my commitment to them would suffer.
He shared the story of his start. During the early days of his practice, as the one who was working from home, he had to be there more for his kids. His wife’s job required a bit of travel so he did most of the kids' care.
He got their uniforms ready, made their breakfast, packed their lunches and sent them off to school.
He would also be the one to welcome them home, get their meals ready and put them to bed.
It meant he could only work between 8 am to 1 pm. Afterwards, it’s after that it’s when the kids go to bed.
But he couldn’t stay up all too late because he had to be up early to get the kids ready for school.
He also could not take up speaking engagements during weekends.
Most people couldn’t understand why he would say “No” to some requests.
It was a slower way to grow his practice but a great way to grow it without compromising on what matters most to him.
Today, he has great relationships with his kids and a practice that generates over $1m annually.
I got the message.
The message was also reiterated when I met with my spiritual director.
Interestingly, both of them are significantly invested in the day-to-day care of their kids.
They both showed me through their lives that the cost of growing fast may not be worth the price to pay in the future.
I’m resizing my goals to my season of life and to meet what matters most to me.
2-Repeating the Same Tests: Have you heard the saying “You don’t fail God’s tests, He just makes you repeat it until you learn your lesson”
In simple parlance, you repeat until you learn.
I had a lesson repeated this week.
Okay, looking at everything, this is not the first repeat.
But looks like I got the memo this time.
And I’m taking action.
Grateful for Grace that helped out every time I didn’t pass the test.
And now for the same Grace that helped me pass the test.
This time around
Postscript
May you find the wisdom to pass the tests that God keeps bringing your way so you don't keep repeating the same tests. Amen.
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Tola - The Everyday Disciple
I help Christians like you who want to live intentional lives incorporate their faith into everyday life so they can make Christ focused decisions in all areas of life and truly live to make an impact and make God happy.
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