Understanding your purpose (part 1)

Understand Purpose

introduction 

The ultimate purpose of a man is to give glory to God. This function is not manifested until one discovers that element within yourself that will set you in a path to a more meaningful and fulfilled life. You see the great hunger and longing to discover God’s unique original purpose for each one of us when you see people wondering all over the world seeking satisfaction. We shall forever seek the infilling of the void in us until the day we find it in God

In Psalms 139:16 we learn that God has masterminded our lives even before we were born: “…in your book all the days [of my life] were written before I ever took shape, when as yeast, there was none of them”, (Psalm 139:16 AMP). This passage shows clearly that you and I are no accident nor man’s doing whatsoever.

the meaning of purpose

The meaning of purpose is very deep and very spiritual. It goes beyond what you are capable of doing. Your purpose is your God given footprint. When you miss the footprint, you either go astray or head on to destruction.  Your purpose is that which gives you the distinguishing factor. Once you identify and marry yourself to your purpose, you begin to stand out of the crowd, think outside the box and act out of the ordinary.

God uses our purpose to drive us into this world. He uses your purpose to provide for you. When he gave man the Garden of Eden, He instructed man to till the ground. Adam’s instruction was so clear. His enjoying the Garden of Eden was dependant on his performance of that which God instructed him to do. When you get to that point, life becomes easy and energising.
Your purpose is your assignment. Or let me put it this way, your assignment tied to or into your purpose. No matter how hard you try to escape, your purpose will always draw you back to the drawing board. You will find yourself running back and forth, frustrated and winning some battles and losing more until when you find your purpose.

Yeast Resemblance

Yeast usually presents in small particles. Its force or impact is not manifested except when put into the right environment, the dough. You are like dough; Yeast is like your purpose. Yeast makes dough to grow in size, even though it is tiny. Yeast influences the growth and growth rate of dough.
You are the dough and yeast is your purpose. You need to be positioned right to explore the greatness of your purpose on earth. If you embrace your purpose, it grows you.  Your purpose will set you off on a great path of success. But you need to understand that your purpose that your purpose is your first influence, the rest is support systems into the realisation of the true potential. T
The following are properties of yeast. They resemble how purpose can be

Properties of Yeast

_Yeast is tiny, but it influences the size and growth rate of dough. It changes the environment I the dough. Your purpose may seem small, but the influence that it can make is great than you allow it to happen. When a man identifies his purpose, it enlarges his territory by the power of God.

_Yeast works quietly: when it gets in the dough, it does not make any sound. It mixes with the dough as it is not in it. Purpose does not have to be announces on radio and say “I’m born for this and that”. It just acts with a quiet force, sooner or later; the observers will start seeing change without any external tangible force. Dr Myles says some of you “are not powerful in your actions because you are too loud”. Talk less, act more.

_Yeast does not become dough. Even though it mixes with the flower, it does not change from. The dough can expand as much as possible, but it retains its properties. When the environment is slightly warm, yeast performs its function optimally. When yeast is left slightly longer in bread dough, the dough can double in size.

Your purpose can never be changed by circumstances. Instead, your purpose cause change in your circumstances. When pressure comes your way, your purpose makes u float above the circumstances. Identifying your purpose is what has made great men and women who have identifies a gift that may have seemed small, neglected, non-fundable, not appealing and useless to grow beyond ordinary.

_Yeast is useless when stayed in its package: in order for you to enjoy the benefits of yeast, you have to put it in the right mix. It must be removed from its package in order to be effective.
The same applies to you. As long as you are hiding behind some covering of people above or around you, or things surrounding you, you may never realise your full potential. Hear me will, I did not say you will never, I said YOU May Never realise your full potential. Why? Because you still rely on others. Some of the surroundings have actually entrapped us from yielding the fruit of our purpose.

You need to get out, un-wrap your potential and get it mixed with your dough. Like the Blind Bartimaeus, who when Jesus called for him to be brought closer after he had made several calls to Him, he took off his coat (see Mark 10:46-52). He stood up and dusted himself from a blind man’s coat into a new life. You also need to release yourself from the holding cages into the place where your destiny is calling you to. Find out what it is that is holding you back and break away from it. Things like fear, low self-esteem, procrastination, bad friends, lack of knowledge, laziness, keep us from rising to our true purpose and therefore rob of our true greatness.
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To be continued

FROM DREAMS TO REALITY

DON'T JUST DREAM, ACT ON THE DREAM

Time and time again people make decisions based on what goes into their minds. The decisions are influenced by inspiration of excitement or fear. These decisions come in different forms; from small to big, short-term to long-term and so on. The questions that may be asked is; how have you benefited from these decisions? How many have you implemented? If none or few, why have you not implemented your dream?

Many of us have areas that we can point as having benefited or succeeded. Others it is quite the opposite, their decisions are linked to how they have failed, how they are regretting and how miserable their lives are. Day and night people are faced with over-sized images of their regrets. Others are haunted by images of dark fears; fears from past failures, current failures, parental descriptions of negativity, community rejections, business failures, academic failures, relational heartbreaks as well as regrets of “could have”, “should have”, “would have” that never materialized.

There are many other things that are attached to failures, fear and poor achievements in various areas. These failures have actually created permanent “imaginary” labels ascribed to us.

How does one move from failure to success, from losing to triumphant living, from struggling to make significant progress? What is the difference between losing and winning people? What attributes are contained by those who have significantly achieved their goals, and made a success of themselves?

The difference

·          Successful people do daily what poor people do occasionally.

·          Successful people have declared independence from the world.

·          Successful people are bold to take the first step, the opposite (timidity) is true for failures.

·          Successful people view failure as a wrong sharpening of their rod, not as permanent   rejection.

Getting things done

1. Watch your habits

·          Habits repeated are results repeated.

You can change everything in your life, but if your habits have not changed, the results will remain the same. It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

·          What you tolerate in your life, you cannot change.

If you have accepted defeat, failure, weakness, etc., in your life, no matter how hard you try to change it, you will keep struggling with it until you determine to refuse defeat. Joseph in the Bible had many of the things that he decided not to tolerate; his brothers’ negativity, rejection and resentment towards him. He was so much resented by his brothers for dreaming but he did use their negativity as his yardstick, he believed that the dream will come to pass, even if it takes time. His resilience made him succeed his brother’s hatred, being sold to slavery, accused by his master’s wife and wrongfully arrested and sentenced for years in prison for rape he did not commit. Despite all this negativity that surrounded him, he emerged victorious and lived to enjoy his God given dream.

2. Change your thoughts and language

Whatever you keep talking about will eventually multiply. Your thoughts build a path for you to follow. Your silent thoughts are to a certain extent silent prayers in your life, whether you realize it or not.

Your thoughts/ meditation build your character. They determine what you say and how you respond to external stimuli. Once you change your thought pattern to a more positive, ambitious, and bold and possibility focused, you will get things done. Note that your thinking pattern is far worse an enemy than the devil.

Watch also what you say. Young Joseph kept talking about his dream. The great proverbs of all time teaches the power of words; the tongue of the just is like choice silver… the lips of the righteous feed many (Proverbs 10:20-21). A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth (Proverbs 18:20).

Learn to speak positive about yourself and to yourself all the time, it will eventually start to build in you and make up who you are.

3. Learn new skills

 The reason for learning should not be to acquire a certificate of qualification. It should be to get new skills or to sharpen the current set of skills. There are many people with certificates of completion or degrees and diplomas that do not certify competency.

Learning is for the purpose of bridging the skills gap. What you do not know is killing you right now. Knowledge changes and empowers people. Note that you cannot change where you are, but you can change how you are, how you will be and where you will be by changing what goes into your head

4. Take charge

It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities. One of the reasons why people don't get things done is that they took their time to think and plan but never tell themselves to act on their thoughts. When things do not go their way, they blame it on the education system, on parents, on government, etc.

Start to learn and master your “WHY’s?” Once you have answered the “WHY” question, you can endure anything.

Remember, a rejected opportunity to sow is a rejected opportunity to reap. don't let opportunities pass you by.

5. Aim for the big fish

Let the small fish be used as bait for the big fish. Small talk, small thinking is for mediocre people and should be left at primary level. Think big, plan big and act like wise. The greatest heights achieved by many were not achieved overnight, those who did toiled through the night while their counterparts were sleeping and snoring.

Many people miss great opportunities because they are busy chasing small things other than chasing their dreams.

Note: Starting small is not a problem; it becomes a problem when your small beginning becomes what you die for. Aim for the world. Aim for global impact.

6. Master your strengths

When David killed Goliath in battle, he had focused on what he is capable of doing. While the entire Israel including the king at the time focused on how great their enemy was, they failed to realize how strong their army is.

Know your strengths, build on them and capitalize on them each day. As a matter of fact, your skills, if sharpened can be your gold mine

Echo of His Voice

Echo
Portraits from ancient eternity conveyed in infinity
Random antediluvian traits from unfamiliar dynasties emerging in flash-lights
Raging fury of disconcerted frenzies relentlessly wrestle my soul
Blank memories needs to be filled with ancient time bed stories
Whom shall I call to narrate them to me?

The streets have learned the language of the illiterate
The walls have short evocative graffiti that mimics the echo never told
Dry summer air whispers sounds of stories my memories refuse to recall
Skin scrunches to the bone in the imperturbable of the night
Still, I desperately chase the cradle of the ricochet
The echo that ceaselessly haunts my sleeping mind
No philosophy is accurate enough to explain the sound of the echo
No artist can craft the actual essence of the echo
Shall I then conclude that this is a desperate search of untold ancient myths?

The crafts that already exists are not drawn to the image of man
The portraits are illustrative of a supper-human
The intricate interiors are convoluted from incorruptible source
Imperishable is essence of the echo
Incomprehensible to any mortal being but apprehensible to the immortal ever living,
And only Revealed to me!

RELENTLESS

 Arise, Shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee...and the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and the kings to the brightness of thy rising-Isaiah 60:1,3

     A number of times we lie in our rooms with so many questions and ideas in our minds. More often than not, these questions hardly ever get answered and our ideas never reach incubation stage. We tend to abort our ideas early and conceive others. At the same time, our lives are like a Merry-go-round: full of ups and downs.

 Most of us have been exposed to situations that haunt our minds to such an extent that we are mentally crippled or paralysed by fear and mediocrity. The essence of living has been snatched away from you by the past that haunts you. Your experiences of the past have somehow captured you and enslaved you in an atmosphere of mediocre, failures, fears and nightmares and you do not know how to escape from them. The mind has reached a state of hardness from external stimuli. Even if we try to talk you out of the current state of mind; it will be like drilling through a rock that refuses to break.

Many people have been right there where you are and have broken through such state of mind and changed the world. The bible is full of examples of men and women, young and old who have been in similar situations or worse but they emerged victors. They had to take a bold conscious decision to defile the odds of life, detach from mediocre instillations and become giants against their own failures and challenges. Today we refer to them as conquerors and heroes. You can be one. You can emerge from the same situation as a better man or woman and be written in the world’s history books as such.

Today’s youth have to deal with a multitude of challenges ranging from family rejection to being left alone to be parents of small babies and siblings, academic failures to unemployment, from rape to teenage pregnancy and HIV with minimal to no support at all, peer pressures to absolute bullying at school and in the communities, drugs and alcohol to imprisonment and many others. In a world full of these challenges, how do you emerge a victor even with scars of war? Or even, how do you inspire others to do better?

The world offers us a stage where excellence defines who we are and not our integrity. The material achievement have become the label ascribed to by many young people without which life is not as fulfilling as should be. The systems that have been highly pronounced by media present us with a challenge of defending the reality of life against the shadows mostly known to be genuine.

When an angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon in Oprhah, (Judges 6:11), he was dealing with poverty, war, and mediocre. He and his family were faced with poverty while the entire community was in the midst of war. His family was among the least. He had concluded that he is nothing; a looser, least of the least and waiting to die when the Lord appeared to him and called him a mighty man. He gave him a label description that no one else ever ascribed to him. I am sure it came as a great shock to him, a shock that many still experience when they are told they are better than what they actually think they are.

That is similar to what many of us have had to deal with or are already classified as such by the community and our peers.

He had to first wrestle in his mind with the new identity that God was presenting to him. There was war in his mind between his current identity and the new identity which God was inviting him to live in. You have to break away from the old identity that was imposed to you by circumstances and your upbringing into the identity that God has originally placed on you from the beginning. God knows you better any living being on earth. He knows what you are made of and all your capabilities. He knows how to take you from where you are to where he has originally created to be.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11(ESV).

BIBLE HEROES-YOUR BUILT-IN DIVINE TRAITS

The transition from the current state to the realisation of the plans of God for your life will require bold faith. You will be faced with many challenges in life that requires transition. Some of these challenges are addressed in this book. You will, at some point in your life, be forced to make a decision to break out and away from the inhibiting circumstances that life currently presses on you to a better, yet challenging but fulfilling journey.

For example; David had to deal with his family not considering him as candidate when God needed to anoint a king from his father’s house. Even though he was ultimately anointed to be King, the fact that he was not considered by his own father could paralyse the confidence of a young man. But he did not let his father’s recognition or lack thereof define who he was meant to be.

Young Esther had to give up her youth into marriage to a king in order to save Israel (see Esther 4). I think some of the youth and teenagers are dealing with this aspect. Being faced with a responsibility to father or mother a child you did not have time to plan for. A large number of households are child headed in Africa. They are forced to do so because their parents are not there to do it for them for one reason or another.

Young Abel was killed by his own brother for giving a pleasing sacrifice before the Lord. Joseph, when he was still young had a big dream which his brothers did not believe in. Instead, he was hated and sold to slavery by his own brothers for having such a dream.

Have you ever felt like your own family hates you for the good things you are doing? Can you survive the rejection and exclusion from your own family?

These are some of the things that the youth today still face in one form or another. The challenges facing youth in the 21st century are such that some end up joining gangs to compensate for the pain they felt in their upbringing, some turn up to be bad husbands or wives because of their poor upbringing, some never enjoy their youth because of words uttered to them when they were still babies. Words such as; you are stupid; you will never amount to anything; you are ugly, I hate you and so on and on. These have left scars in the hearts of many young boys and girls and ripped them off of their great future.

Many of us have faced similar challenges in our individual lives. These and other challenges have made some to give up from life. Some ended their lives, some just totally resigned from pursuing their dreams. At the same time there are others who faced the same challenges before or at the same time as we did but they emerged victors. The difference is the mind-set.

INDIPENDANCE  FROM IENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

Someone told me this story which I find intriguing:

There were two young men born and raised in one family of the same parents. Their father was a heavy drinker and a drunkard. When they grew up to independence, one grew up to be a drunkard like his father; the other never tasted alcohol and was very successful. When they were asked on separate occasions as to how did they turn out to be what they turned out to be. They both gave the same answer: my father was a drunkard!

What is the difference between the two guys? This scenario explains what you and I are exposed to and what we can do. We can all be in the same situation but we do not have to become what the situation dictates for us. We should exercise the power of choice and boldly move from dictated and imposed realities to the real purpose God created us for.

With this book, I want to encourage every young man and young woman and show you that you can come out from the walls withholding you. I want to show you that you can be free from the place of low self-esteem, deal with the words once spoken to you, emerge a strong and confident person and show the world what you are made of. You are born of God and you can overcome any thing the world throws at you (1 John 5:4). Arise, stand tall and shine for your glory is risen upon you (Isaiah 60:1). Be bold.