Welcome to the January 30th 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
I’m on a 90-day training which started on Monday.
One of the first assignments we were given was to call friends of ours and ask them to give us money.
You probably guess that the training has something to do with money with an assignment like that.
This assignment was new territory for me.
I can’t recall ever asking anyone for money in my life.
During my undergraduate, my dad would come and give me money because he figured what I had would have been expended.
I just found a way to get by with whatever I had.
The lesson in this assignment was not about getting money.
Rather it was learning to ask. How do you ask in a way that makes people willing to give if they have?
Fortunately, our trainer gave us some guidelines.
I sent this message to the people I selected
“I'm in a program and today I have an assignment.
To just simply ask people who believe in and support me for money. Doesn't matter how much...
Will you support me by giving me some?”
All the four people I sent it to sent me money.
Another lesson I picked up was how to open myself to let others bless me with whatever they had.
The last time I got money from someone was when I was fellowship president during my undergraduate days.
Two students had come together to come and give me money as a way of appreciating the work I was doing.
The act touched me a lot.
I was so used to giving that this act stopped me in my tracks.
In school, I had a busy schedule - leading the campus fellowship, running the students’ association at some point, and keeping my grades up, but I still cooked meals and made time to give tutorials.
Acts like the gift from these two friends and the ones from the friends that responded remind me to get out of my way.
And let people be blessed by being a blessing to me.
Things I Learnt
1-Everyday Hurts Need Healing: One of the things I have been blessed with in my walk with God is the freedom to receive regular therapy and healing from God for any hurt.
Because I have God as my therapist on a 24-hour call, sometimes, I get therapy for things I didn't know were a problem.
It's sort of like He catches the dis-ease before it becomes a full-grown problem.
I had something like that happen this week.
After months of trying to make an initiative pay off at work, I finally got it up and running.
It was going to be a huge benefit to all the parties concerned.
But as Helmuth von Moltke inferred, "No Plan Survives First Contact With the Enemy", my best laid out initiative got a bashing.
It wasn't a problem with the initiative - it was a problem with the flawed assumptions of the beneficiaries.
Anyhow, as a budding negotiator, I moved the conversation from competitive negotiation to a collaborative negotiation.
I laid out a plan of how to move things forward.
A plan that could create a win-win situation to some extent.
About 2 days later, as I was praying, my resident therapist called my mind to the whole event.
He pointed out that I had been hurt by how the whole thing transpired.
I needed to have the hurt healed so I could continue to serve the people better.
So, I took the hurt I didn't know I had which I now discovered was there to God the healer.
A healed heart can serve better because it holds no bitterness from the past.
It is not guarded because of the pain suffered from the past.
I'm better.
Because I listened.
2 - Keep the Communication Chain: Two posts on my Facebook timeline caught my attention. The biggest one was when someone from a choir I used to be part of years ago passed on.
The guy was one of those reliable types that could be counted on to do more than was required at any time.
Turns out the guy had been ill for a while. This eventually led to his death.
Another member of the choir posted that people did not come together to help when he was ill but are coming together to contribute towards his funeral. Someone responded that he didn't even know the guy had been ill.
And herein lies the problem with our ever-growing community.
The community has grown so big that we are disconnected from each other. We even miss when other parts of the community are in pain.
One of the things I am trying to recover this year as I pursue my 2022 focus word "TRIBE" is how I can keep the connection with my weak links.
My weak links are the people that are outside my immediate family, accountability friends, masterminds, mentors, value friends, and extended family members.
I want to keep the connection fresh so they can still feel at ease to reach out to me for help or even bring an opportunity I can benefit from to me.
It really hurts me that this brother passed on.
He is someone I would have gladly added my 10 cents to his cause when he was ill.
If only I knew.
I can't keep regretting what I couldn't do.
I will keep my hands on the wheel.
To see what I can do now.
Making every moment count.
For the glory of His Name.
And service to God's people
Postscript
May God's Holy Spirit remind your heart of the things you need to do which you have left undone and the things you are doing which you need to multiply in. May you never be lazy or complacent in using all that Jesus has given you to live a life that matters to God. Amen.
Tata,
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.
0 comments