Don't Worry

Quite often, I wish I could talk myself out of worrying like I do to other people. I tell myself time and over again “to practice what I preach”. I must confess, it is easier said than done. Despite the fact that I have committed things to the Almighty and I have no doubts whatsoever that He would answer, I still find myself being worried. Is this peculiar to me or do people feel this way too?

Recently, I found myself sliding back into the habit of worrying and I prayed to God earnestly to please help me. You bet He answered; our God is still in the business of answering prayers. As soon I began worrying again, I remembered a song we used to sing while I was young, it goes thus:

Why worry when you can pray
Trust Jesus and He will lead the way
Don't be like doubtful Thomas
Just rest upon His promise
Why do you worry when you can pray?

I have made that song my anthem. The Holy Spirit has also been ministering to me with some Bible verses that I would like to share, just in case anyone is in the ‘boat of worrying’ with me.

Are you a permanent resident?

I bet we all know that permanent residents of countries that have such facility have almost, if not the same rights as citizens. But todays message is not about migrating to other countries, it is actually to tell you not to become a permanent resident, because it can be to your detriment.

Quite a number of Christians have become permanent residents in the "land of hope". We keep hoping things will get better, hoping to get a good job, hoping to get married, hoping to become an employer, hoping 'the mountain will be removed, hoping the Goliath of our lives will die, hoping the walls of Jericho will come crashing down someday. It's a good thing to be hopeful but is it not written in the Bible that "hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life"? Proverbs 13: 12. My Bible also tells me that He gave power to those who believe to become the sons of God John 1:12. As a son of your parents, when you were a child, you didn't just hope your parents would pay your school fees did you? Instead of just hoping, I believe, we got up in the mornings and got ready for school rest assured they already took care of the school fees. My question is, why do we find it difficult to put our faith to work when we ask our Heavenly Father for things? Why can't we simply exercise our authority as God's children?  

Forgiveness

This is something I struggle with, and at times, I’m not even sure I know what it means. I believe quite a number of people feel this way too, forgiveness is a subject matter that we keep talking about but permit me to say, we never fully comprehend.

Some people say to forgive is to forget. Richard Pettinger in The meaning of forgiveness (read it here) says “to be sincere in our forgiveness of others we should not even remember the incident. Sometimes forgiveness can be conditional, we shall tell somebody we have forgiven them, but maybe later we will bring it up to use it against them. This is not real forgiveness. Only when we do not think about the experience have we really forgiven others". I kind of disagree with this school of thought. To me, you have forgiven someone when you no longer feel angry and you don’t resent the person that offended you. When you can truly think of the person without feeling any need to revenge and wish him/her well.

Project thankful

Wow!!! I checked the blog today and to my utmost suprise, we have over 1000 views already, within the first three weeks. That is just amazing, God is awesome and He has continually proven Himself in my life. I say thank you.

To think that I battled with the idea of starting this blog for months, I'm completely suprised at how fast God is working through me. I check the audience and I ask myself, who do I know in Russia, Sweden, Ghana and some other countries? This can only be God at work.

I remember the day people told me they couldn't comment on the posts and I didn't seem to find any reason why, I told my sister to pray "that the devil will not tamper with this blog", and she told me "your blog is already going places, the devil can't stop you because you belong to God", I bet she doesn't know it but that was the message I needed to hear from God. We were able to fix the bug and that reminded me of how often I forget that the devil can not trouble me for "I have been bought with a price" therefore, "I know that my home is safe, when I survey my possessions, nothing will be missing" Job 5: 24. From that day, I continually ask God to help me to be mindful of His presence in my life and boy, He's answered that prayer.

This is to say a big thank you to my ever faithful God and of course to you all, I feel very happy when people tell me how blessed they are by reading and how timely they are.

A few of your encouraging messages to me are:

"You are doing great, keep it up, please don't stop because someday it will save a life, heal a heart and keep a soul from going to hell".

"This message is what I needed to read, I'm proud to be your friend"

"Wonderful message, God bless you"

I am truly humbled and grateful for this opportunity.

May God bless you all. Please keep reading.
XX

Unanswered prayers? I have some too.

First I have to apologise for going AWOL, I am truly sorry about that. I have been putting this together since Thursday though, but somehow, I didn't get to finish it.

So now, to our message for today; Have you ever felt like God is no longer interested in answering your prayers or has some more important things to deal with than your personal needs? Do you ever feel there’s no point praying because the prayers you said earlier had no effect whatsoever? Well, you are not alone on this, i've felt these ways too.

I woke up on Thursday mroning feeling so down, this was completely out of place as I had just one more day before my much talked about vacation began. Then I remembered how I was yet to receive answers to my prayer requests (the two I’ve had for over two years now), I immediately rebuked the devil but as we all know, the “opposer” doesn’t give up easily. As soon as i read one of my daily devotionals for the day, which was about how God gives good gifts to those who ask (Matthew 7: 11), I remembered how God was yet to give me these ‘good gifts’ I have been asking Him. Then I read my second devotional (I normally read two of them) and this was also reminding me that the Almighty God hears me when I pray.

That did it, I sat down and thought to myself, why has God not answered these my prayers?  My devotional time for that day was quite different from what I used to do, instead of kneeling down with my head bowed and eyes closed like I normally do, I sat down and talked to God like He was sitting right in front of me, I reminded Him how He told me to "call to Him, and He would answer me, and show me great and mighty things that I do not know" Jeremiah 33: 3, how He is my gold and precious silver, so why has He not answered my prayers? (Job 22: 25 - 28), how I try as best to obey His commands, so why does it seem His ears are not open to my prayers like 1 Peter 3: 12 says? How my parents have been serving Him even before I was born, so when will that verse that says "we are for signs and wonders" (Isaiah 8: 18) come true in our lives? How the Bible says I should ask and I will receive (Matthew 7: 7 -11, Luke 11: 9 - 13),  so why was I yet to receive those two things I have been asking for over two years now? Do not get me wrong, I have no doubts whatsoever that God answers prayers neither was I questioning Him, I was just having a one-on-one discussion with “my Father” and wanted to know why these prayers were not answered as I am convinced they are part of God’s plans for me.

As God would have it, He gave me answers to my questions before that day ended, during my blog round, I read about a man who was contemplating on taking his own life because he felt God doesn’t answer his prayers anymore, and I found myself sending a message of faith and encouragement to this person I have never met, one special thing about it though is that God used this opportunity to speak to me too, I got reassured (in trying to assure someone), that God is still in the business of answering prayers, and faith in Him also means faith in His timing. All I just have to do is “cast my cares upon Him and He will sustain me” Psalm 55: 22 knowing that "when He has tried me, I will come forth as gold". Job 23: 10.

While saying my prayers that night, I casted my mind back and counted my blessings, I rememebered how God always shows Himself strong for me, I remembered a song I learnt many years ago (Alleluyah anyhow, I’ll never let my trials get me down, whatever problems life may bring, i’ll hold my head up high singing Alleluyah anyhow). The fact that some Liberians who had just gone through the terrible experience of war taught my family this song made me thank God much more, I thanked Him because though, I don’t have answers to my two prayer requests yet, I have the assurance that He is greater than all my trials and I am certain that He cannot forget me. Infact, I am inscribed on the palms of the Almighty's hand and that is worth rejoicing over because that means I am continually before Him. Isaiah 49: 14 – 16. So by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving I will keep asking (Philippians 4:6) in His name till my joy is full (John 16:24) and I implore that you keep doing that too. Someday, we will look back and realise that the answers to our prayers came at the very right time, like I read sometime ago, God always shows up on time.

I leave you with these words from Stormie Omartian, one of my favorite authors. “Don’t give place to impatience, seeing answers to your prayers can take time, be patient to persevere and wait. Look to God as the source of all you want to happen and don’t worry about how it will happen. It’s your responsibility to pray, it’s God job to answer. Leave it in His hands” and wait on the Lord, don't lose heart but believe that you would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the Living (Psalm 27: 13 - 14)

Keep learning but start building.

Last week, I read an article “Lessons from the world’s ugliest woman” (read it here) and it got me thinking; Just a few days before that, I saw an interesting quote that says “if you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to build theirs”. I got my message for you from these two.

Just reading that article about Lizzie Velasquez really did get me thinking, it reminded me of the cruelty of man to man. I thought to myself, how can people be so insensitive to the pains of others? But the best part of the story for me is when I read about how she turned all the cruel comments into her source of inspiration. Lizzie now walks up to people to introduce herself and tell them “Maybe you should stop staring and start learning." Oh, how I admire her courage.

And that brings us to the quote of building your dreams. Lizzie is building her dreams and you ought to as well. A lot of us are in the habit of procrastination, like I wrote in my first post (read it here if you missed), I also find myself struggling with procrastination at times. In this age where we glorify virtually everything, often times, much more than we would like to accept, we are in the habit of glorifying the word “busy”. If you ask a friend why s/he is yet to submit that application or proposal s/he was so excited about, I bet the person would be quick to tell you about how busy s/he’s been. But you would find out that that person had just enough time to watch his/her favorite show on TV all week long. One thing we fail to realize though is that each time we turn on the TV to watch that reality show, we are not only watching some other people build, we are also helping them build their dreams.

For some, if you ask them what has kept them from launching their dreams, they would tell you that they are still learning in order to get it just right at their very first attempt; I am yet to find any man/woman who is a great achiever that got it right the very first time, as “falling down is a part of learning how to walk”, My question to the people who give this kind of excuse is, wouldn’t you think something is terribly wrong if a child goes to school for years without graduating? My guess is, you will. Well then, same rule applies to people that keep learning without putting their acquired skills and experiences into good use. So my dear readers, I ask you today to start building your dreams, no matter how little the step you take, like it is popularly said, “little drops of water, makes an ocean”.

With that being said, I leave you with this quote by Arnold Bennett “We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is. No object is served in waiting until next week or even until tomorrow. Keep going day in and day out. Concentrate on something useful. Having decided to achieve a task, achieve it at all costs”.

Have a dream building week.