A GOD WORTH WAITING FOR

It’s morning and you walk out the door at 6:30am to head across town for an important engagement you have at 7:00am. All is going as expected until you turn the corner to see you left the headlights on all night. Your fears are confirmed as you turn the key in the ignition to no avail.

Two choices emerge in your mind. There is a bus stop half a mile from where you live and you would board a vehicle that can get you to your destination. You’d probably be late, but it’s definitely a possibility. Then there is a neighbour who lives next door but is known for her ability to turn every five (5)-minute task into half an hour. You call in the favor and she says she just needs to get dressed and will be there shortly.

By now it’s 6:40am. Do you begin the half mile trek to the bus stop or wait for your friend who continues to claim that she will be there soon? Your choice will reveal what you deem as most reliable to fulfill your need of getting to your meeting because we naturally wait on what we believe to be reliable.

There’s a reason no car is on queue at an empty filling station, hoping for the attendants to magically appear. There’s a reason no one is at the post office on Christmas day waiting to send their order. No one is coming. Waiting is pointless. We only wait on what we believe to be reliable.

To wait on God is to see Him as the greatest and only solution to a problem.  To wait on God is to affirm that He is reliable. To wait on God is to put your hope in Him above all other things.  To wait is to hope. To wait is an expression of faith. And this is not the unsure “I-hope-this-works” kind of faith.  This faith is an affirmation of the certainty and unfailing trust that we have in God.

Do you wait on God?  Do you persist in prayer expectantly before an answer comes? Or do you give up waiting on God after a few days?  Do you wait on God and look to Him throughout your day for your joy?  Or are you waiting on a text, Facebook message, or a certain number of “likes” on your last tweet to bring you a sense of happiness?  A lack of waiting on God reveals that you are not convinced that He is reliable in answering prayers or bringing true joy to His children.

The unfortunate reality is, we are all prone to wait on (and hope in) many other things besides God. We habitually wait on a change in circumstances, money, a person, or an opportunity as solutions to our problems. It does not come naturally to wait on God. Rather, waiting on God is a spiritual discipline that is to be cultivated, not something we can expect will happen automatically. This prayer showcases two important things. First, there is a temptation to wait on something other than God.  So, what are you tempted to wait for? What do you believe is a reliable solution to your current circumstances? A boyfriend, a husband, a change in your boss, a best friend, being in the inner circle, a smaller body, a job, a promotion, a successful ministry, more money, children, more children, nicer clothes?

Waiting is active.  It is a continuous and active looking to God as the answer to all problems and unfulfilled longings.  It is a conscious choice to persist in seeking God, not a subconscious existing between prayer requests. It is a fight to continually refocus the hope of our souls onto God alone. It is the constant reminding of our souls that He is trustworthy, He is reliable, and He will come through.  Though waiting on God is crucial when prayers remain unanswered and God seems distant, it is just as necessary in fruitful seasons when we are prone to complacency and self-reliance.

Only through communion with God do we find fullness of joy, abundant life, and help in every circumstance. Wait on him and thou shall in the end bloom!

STRONG, GIFTED, UNIQUE!

If you are reading this, chances are I don’t actually know you, i.e. we’ve never shaken hands, never talked face-to-face. But still, I feel like I know you. While I may not know you, I do know some things about you. You probably know these things about you, too. It’s just… sometimes, they’re easy to forget.

You are stronger than you think you are. It’s true. When you get tired and run down, it’s easy to lose sight of this. It’s easy to think you’re weak and you don’t have what it takes. But that’s not true. You are stronger than you think you are.

The first time I learned this about myself was when I jogged for two (2) hours straight some few months ago. It was a completely illogical decision. I have barely jogged more than twenty (20) minutes in the last five (5) to seven (7) years. But someone threw out the suggestion, and in the heat of the moment it seemed kind of glamorous and totally fascinating. And of course, I wanted to be glamorous and fascinating.

But instead of making me feel that way, doing that jog made me feel like I was completely unfit for such a task. I would look at the duration of time and length of the route I set out to complete and think, “there is no way I could possibly go that far,” or I’d see people who had come out for their regular exercise fly past me while I was jogging, and I would think to myself; “you’re so fat now, and can barely run. Oyiwodu, you can’t even breath and you’re barely thirty (30) minutes gone”.

My thoughts were everywhere. And as I watched others stream past me like gazelles in the wild, I clomped along like a Clydesdale, wondering whether I was going to make it at all – boy, was I exhausted already!

In less than an hour of jogging, when I was quite certain that the cramping in my legs would prevent me from finishing, all I could do was whisper to myself: “You’re stronger than you think you are”. And you know what? That’s right, cos I did complete the race in two (2) hours without stopping for a break! And if I was right about me then, chances are I’m right about you now.

You’re stronger than you think you are. Even when you’re out of hair. Even when you feel like a mess. Even when it seems like everyone else has it more “together” than you do. And I dare to say; especially in those moments. You’re stronger than you think you are.

You belong. Yes, you do. It might not seem like you have a place to belong or that you belong where you are, but you do. Sometimes we have to uncover our space, or discover it, or carve it out; which can be tricky to do without stepping on the toes of others, without accidentally taking up someone else’s space. When we occupy the space another was designed to occupy, we miss the peace of fitting in our own space, the one that was designed uniquely for us.

It’s a balancing act. But there is room for you. In life, in your career, in your family, in your church, in your community.

You just have to find it. You don’t have to fight for it, you don’t have to be sly about it, you don’t have to compete for it. It’s already yours. You own it. You just have to discover where it is and live into it as you grow into the most beautiful version of yourself. It won’t always be comfortable or easy, but do stop fighting to prove you belong. Infact, there is nothing to prove. You belong.

You are incredibly, uniquely gifted. You’d be amazed the things you can do - sing, write, build, create, draw, act, counsel, serve, love, cultivate, captivate, grow and be kind. What’s even more amazing is that you can do these things in such a way that no one else can, no one. What you do is beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

You are incredibly, uniquely gifted. It is so easy to forget this, isn’t it? It is so easy for our gifts to become an old hat. If I could have any talent in the world, if I were just picking, I wish I were eloquent. In fact, sometimes, when I’m home by myself, I open my mouth and pretend like what happens next is anything remotely resembling eloquence. But it’s not, really (take my word for it).

I know I am gifted in other ways and indeed, we all are. But it’s just so easy to think someone else’s gifts are more glamorous, more useful or even more exciting than ours.

To be clear, I don’t ever plan to stop speaking when I’m alone (I might even keep pretending it sounds good…lol) but I do plan to stop wishing away my gifts and to stop assuming someone else’s gifts are more impressive than mine.

You are uniquely and incredibly gifted. Yes, You. Take every chance to serve people, and to celebrate the gifts of others. Instead of resenting your gifts or wishing you had different ones, invest completely and wholeheartedly in the ones you’ve been given. 

Embrace opportunities. Grow your talent. Master your craft. Bloom!

FIVE THINGS I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE EVERYDAY

I’ll just say it. I’m prone to mood swings.  When I’m happy, I’m really happy. I feel it perfectly and intensely and could almost spill over with the sensation of being totally filled up and satisfied. At the same time, when I’m upset, or angry, I’m completely upset or angry and no matter the logic you use, you’ll be hard pressed to talk me out of feeling that way.

Feeling things is a good thing, it makes one highly empathetic to others. And yet, I must admit there are times this doesn’t always feel like a good thing. There are times I wish I could not empathize with someone because it hurts to feel empathy, and because when you empathize too much with too many people, after awhile you begin to feel the weight of the whole world on your shoulders.

There are also times when my tendency to feel deeply can alienate me from relationships, disconnect me from reality, and prevent me from making calm, clear-headed choices. There are times when my tendency to over-emote can derail my entire day.

Recently, I’ve been focusing on keeping those mood swings in check by reminding myself of a few things I must believe no matter how I feel or what mood I'm in.

§      The world is a good place, with good people where good things happen. No doubt, bad things happen too. But when I start my day with the assumption that good things often happen, my attention tends to be drawn to the good things that happen to me and around me. When an outcome is hanging in the balance, this assumption keeps me from wasting time with needless worry. Either way, focusing on good things keeps me from catastrophizing my life. Even if I’m having a bad day now, chances are the next half hour will be better.

§      People are not out to get you, stop feeling victimised. When I assume that people are not out to get me (that most people, most of the time, are really doing the best they can), it keeps me from overreacting when someone does something I don’t like, that frustrates me or hurts my feelings. Though I may not fully understand the motives behind others’ actions neither will I also be able to control them, I can only assume that their motives weren’t meant to hurt me and I can choose to ignore rather than retaliate when I’m offended.

§      What feels like a “crisis” is rarely as tragic as it seems. Those things that feel like a “crisis” in our daily life; not hearing the alarm, running out of gas, being late for an appointment, etc. will rarely seem as tragic when we look back on it two, five or ten hours from now. I’m learning to remind myself of this fact each day, so that when “crisis” come, I can stay calm.

§      I still have a lot to learn. Having this in mind keeps me from the fruitless task of trying to change the mind of someone who thinks differently than me. It keeps me teachable, and allows me to approach life with my eyes wide open. It also keeps me from getting frustrated with others who have a lot to learn too because in the end, we all do.

§      Life isn’t rigged. Sometimes it feels like the game of life is rigged. Some people are set up to be successful, others aren’t. Some have the resources to be successful, others don’t. Truth be told though, we’re all dealt a different hand in life but the game isn’t rigged. We all get out what we put in (we reap what we sow).

The reward of these choice of thoughts has helped me bloom.

TO DO LIST

Live through this day one step at a time and not set far-reaching goals to try to overcome all your problems at once. 

Today, stay happy! Abraham Lincoln said, "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be" and he was right. Dwell not on thoughts that depress you, chase them out of your mind and replace them with happy ones.

Even if it's just for today, adjust yourself to what is. Face reality, correct those things that you can correct and accept those you cannot.

Improve your mind, do not be a mental loafer. Force yourself to read something that requires effort, thought, and concentration.

Do something positive to improve your health. Make an honest effort to do the right things by your health. If overweight, eat nothing you know to be fattening and make yourself exercise ~ even if it's only walking around the neighbourhood or using the stairs. We know so much more about nutrition  and how much exercise and sensible living can extend one's life and make it more enjoyable; so just for today, take good care of your body so you can celebrate many more happy years.

Make a conscious effort to be agreeable. Look as good as possible, dress becomingly, speak softly, act courteously and do not interrupt when someone else is talking.

Try not to improve anybody except yourself. Have a program. You may not follow it exactly, but it will be a guide will, saving you from two pests that so easily besiege one: hurry and indecision.

Just for today, gather the courage to do what is right, take the responsibility for your actions and bloom.

SAVING THE FRIENDSHIP OR THE FRIEND?

I remember reading somewhere: “you can pick your friend but you can't pick your friend’s nose”. Here’s what I understood from that quote – it’s never so easy to judge our friends. This brings me to the title of this post; it’s not easy to critique our friends because that may lead us to that corner where you have to make the difficult/hurtful decision of picking a friend over the friendship with that friend because a real friend cares more about the friend than the friendship with the friend.

Although I’m not a champion great friendships, I think it's important to note that the real beauty of truly great friendships is not the friendship in itself but rather the courage to choose that friend over the friendship. 

For instance, I've been faced multiple times with the choice of having difficult conversations with certain good friends. Conversations that would either save my friend from driving off a cliff (if they see value in what I’d say) or potentially derail and change the nature of our friendship forever (if they don't see value in what I say).

This is where we all take the easy route - avoid the confrontation, say a prayer for our pals, risk nothing and save the friendship. When the right thing to do would be to risk the friendship for the sake of the friend because unless we love our friends more than we love the friendships with these friends, we're only loving ourselves.

Loving our friends so much that we can spill the bitter truth to them gut honestly is so difficult and dangerous because it's costly, uncomfortable and sometimes costs us friendships.

Have you ever lost a friendship because of you didn’t want to lose the friend? If your answer to that question is no, you should have at least come close. If not, chances are that you care more about your friendships than your friends.

Let’s examine ourselves, what have you generally placed more value on through your actions, the friendship or the friend?

Help a friend bloom.

SURRENDERING ALL

"I surrender all..... to thee my blessed saviour". So, this hymn has been on my mind/lips for some days now and I can't help but write out the lyrics so I can actually realise what I've been singing.

Staring at the words of that song, I realise that surrendering my life to God really freaks me out. Probably for the same reason it freaks you out. It freaks me out because like you, I don’t know what God’s going to do with my life if I surrender it to him. 

You know what scared me the most about God while growing up? Being sent to live in some remote place for the rest of my life. Now that I think of it, I grew up in Africa – Nigeria for that matter, where else could be more remote than the white man’s grave? 

All my years I lived in Africa and for most of those years I had the same fear some of you had. I was afraid that if I surrendered my life to God, He would send me to some remote place where they don’t have light or cable TV and I just couldn’t take that chance.

I couldn’t take the chance that God would choose to do something with my life that didn’t fit with my hopes and dreams and so I did what so many of us do with our lives - I held on as tightly as I could to my life and everything that mattered to me because life felt safer and easier that way.  

                                          
You know what I think every single christian has in common? We're all holding something from God because we're afraid of what He might do if we let go. I honestly can't tell you how scary it is to "surrender" to God, so I just hold on.

Some of us are holding on to relationships. There’s no way we're surrendering our dating lives to God because we're pretty sure the moment we do, He'll ask us to be single for the rest of our lives. For some of us, it’s our finances, our career, a certain behavior, a secret sin, an addiction… the list goes on

I don’t know what you're specifically holding on to, but we all are holding something and tempted/deceived to believe life is safer and smarter that way. What if we got it all backwards? What if I told you that surrendering the most important things in your life to God is actually the smartest decision and safest thing you can do with those things?

How do I know this? I know because no one has ever surrendered his life to God and lived to regret it. No one! Not one person in the history of the world has ever given what mattered most to God and lived to regret it. Just ask Abraham, David, Moses, Esther, every and any person in the bible who surrendered to God,  Me. 

It's true, so true. If you obey Jesus and surrender your life to him, you will overly bloom.

"DETOXING "TOXIC" FRIENDS"

Periodically, I read posts about cutting “toxic” friends. I envision us all making lists of toxic friends and difficult people we need to avoid for our own mental wellbeing and I’m pretty sure we’ve all made it to some of those lists or at least, I know I have to be on a few “toxic friends and difficult people” lists because many days, I make my own mistakes, step on toes on purpose or without even knowing it because let’s face it: we can be really difficult sometimes.

Like, I really don’t fancy talking on the phone so I do almost anything via e-mails or SMSs and those messages are (more often than not) excessively long and include way more details, asides, and parentheticals than is conducive to conveying my meaning (like this one sentence, lol). Now, some find that annoying and sometimes passive-aggressive.

I’m also constantly optimistic that things will blow over without me needing to feel the discomfort of actual confrontation. I avoid conflict for so long that when I finally do say something, it’s like I’ve sprung the whole shebang on the unsuspecting person.

Another difficult thing about me is that I like having just one or two close friends, but I’m so socially inept that I end up clinging limpet-like to poor people who are just trying to be friendly. And because who knows when I’m going to move out of state again, I feel a need to make friends fast.  This sense of urgency just exacerbates this barnacling tendency.

Contrarily though, I’m suspicious of anyone who likes me too much. In the university, it was really bad. If someone expressed an interest in me—especially a romantic interest, but sometimes even just a close-friendship interest—I cut and run. I did my best to be invisible to that person hoping they would forget I existed. I’ve gotten better in the last four years, but that may be in part because it’s easier to be invisible when there’s no school or work to go to, or new people to meet. So I don’t have to work as hard to disappear as I did when I was an undergraduate.

And if someone does succeed in becoming my close friend, they get the reward of dealing with my fierce and inexplicable mood swings. I’ve tried to find a physical, emotional, or climatic cause for my days-long mood swings hoping to find a cure for them, but to no avail. I just sometimes, without warning, become a total jerk. I can see it happening, but I feel powerless to stop it.

And then there’s my flippant attitude about gifts. I know at least a couple of people have been hurt when they’ve given me a gift and then I stylishly or bluntly turn it down for whatever reason! I really can be a jerk, too bad.

Anyway, that’s me. I still think that everyone’s toxic sometimes. Seeing the ways in which I’m toxic gives me a fair amount of empathy for other people who might be considered toxic. There are still people I avoid; people who are particularly creepy, paranoid, consistently belligerent or holding grudges.

Unfortunately, there are some persons we always try to avoid - being around them is like being exposed to nuclear waste. Unlike with some other people, we try to control how much we’re affected by whatever vibes they’re radiating. We think, maybe they’re just having a bad day, maybe they’re feeling as awkward as we are and are overcompensating, maybe there’s something really big going on for them that they aren’t talking about but that is coming through anyway. If all else fails, we think of them as poor babies; that’s almost sure to inspire gentle feelings in us.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s difficult all the time. They might always be difficult for me, but there’s always someone who loves them and whom they love. Or maybe I just feel this way because it’s pragmatic. Most social interactions carry a much higher price than they do a pay-out for me, and although I need to find some way to not be a hermit, being on people’s toxic lists does help decrease the number of people with whom I need to interact - it saves me from making my own toxic list and speeds up my bloom.