Knowing me well
It is beginning to
sink in and I need to grab this and run with this like a man with a mission who
just realised that his train is about the leave the platform doing everything I
can to get on that train.
I have done so many
things under my strength, by my ability because of my eligibility and my capability,
a self-made man who has an amazing history, a depressing present and from a
mere man’s perspective a very unclear future.
In the midst of
this, I have come to the realisation that I am perfect for my role if I allow
the call upon my life to be exhibited not in the boasts I can give about what I
have done but by allowing certain truths that underpin the basis of my
Christian faith to shine out of my imperfections.
My imperfections prepare me
O yes, I am an imperfect
man, with unmatched tools and unworthy causes set out for a job that I am
unqualified for, that has me weak in strength, stuttering in incoherence and lacking
in all confidence but it is what makes me perfect for my role.
Why will the weak
say I am strong? Why is it that it is those that become like children that have
the greatest chance of entering heaven? Why is it that it is the foolish things
of the world that have been chosen to confound the wise?
All because God
does not want us to rely on our strengths, our abilities, our magnificence and
the many things that allow us to boast about what we have been able to do such
that God is grudgingly given the glory for where we have arrived at. Until we
begin to realise that all things are for the excellency of the God’s purpose
and power to be revealed through us that if we might be tempted to boast all we
can boast of is in the Lord, we are still doing things under our strength.
The Act of Letting
Where we are not
doing things under our strength, we accentuate our weaknesses using those as excuses
not to be step forward and be counted because as men we are schooled to use
heaven as a augmentation to what we have rather than let heaven’s grace radiate
from within us in all our imperfections for men to see the power of God
expressed in the weak such that God might be glorified in us.
I am perfect for my
role, having lost everything, with chronic health issues, lots of experience
brought to nothingness by perceived unviability, almost without a name and
struggling with too many things to mention, else this will become an endless
read – at that point where acceptance is the beginning of radical change –
letting go and letting God – in the most clichéd of evangelical phrases to
perfect His will in me.
The Power of Acceptance
I remember not so
long ago as I navigated the Kubler-Ross Five
Stages of Grief, only then the grief was dealing with disease, the moment I
accepted I had cancer I was ready to look at the next stage of my life, winning
the battle and putting it into remission – it happened and by medical
assessment, my consultants thought the speed of my recovery was both marvellous
and miraculous.
Now, the grief is
catastrophe manifested in misfortune and I think I have reached the stage of
acceptance where what now lays before me is a future that will stretch my
imagination.
The path to realisation
I am no doubt a
work in progress, ready for what is ahead of me by reason of what I could not
have anticipated. The moment I began to realise that people are blessing me not
so much because I am so liked but because they themselves are just amazingly
and innately good anyhow, I have begun to get some perspective of the level of
gratitude I should have for the too many wonderful things that have become the
story of my sometimes ordinary and sometimes extraordinary life.
This story is just
about to take off.
For those who might
be so inclined to elicit why I have come to this realisation, I have been
listening to Pastor
Steven Furtick of Elevation
Church who preached a number of sermons titled – Living a Better Story –
there might be some truth in it for you too.
Useful links
These links point
directly to the MP3 files
The Elevation
Church HomePage.
The Elevation
Church Podcast portal for
audio, video and HD video archived podcasts, all free to access.
1 comment:
Yeah, acceptance of one's true circumstance is the only way to truly begin to solve the problems one has. That is, if they can be solved. Otherwise one might also have to accept that certain things can not be "solved" and that in a way, also needs to be accepted.Hiding (which of course, is my past time) or denial never helps.
There are so many things that happen in life. Doors closed, others opened. Nothing makes sense sometimes. Why certain things happen. For what purpose? Why me? the infinite question...
I no longer ask such questions. I now just see life the way it is and deal with it as it is. That does not mean that it is fair or unfair or that I deserve or do not not deserve the things that happen. It just means that I have accepted that life does not really have a formula and the best one can do is live life as you have it now, in the present. Very hard to do but there is no alternative, living in the past or the future is like living in fantasy land. Its not real. What is real, is here and now.
Keep on going strong, Akin. There will be better times ahead.
Love always.
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