The Gentle South Winds are not Gentle

Dear lovely people,

Fact: life is a storm sometimes and so storms will always come and go in your life.  When trouble strikes, we sometimes forget our knowledge of God. We struggle to recall past answers to prayer and lessons learned in previous crises. Only the present seems real. Our minds spin with future implications, and our troubled emotions inhibit clear thinking. When the storms come, never forget there is someone who can bring you peace.

One day in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, Christ was asleep when a storm came upon them. The Apostles began to fear the storm as they were tossed by the winds and water filled their boat. They awoke Jesus, crying. Christ arose and calmed the winds and waves with His power, saying “Peace, be still” (Mark 4:38-39). He turned to His Disciples and asked, “Where is your faith?” Life can be tempestuous, tossing us with winds of misfortune, grief, shame, or stress. How then do we stay calm and maintain our confidence and courage, regardless of what happens?

God put the apostle Paul, as a prisoner, on board a ship headed from Palestine to Rome. After the ship docked at the island of Crete, God told Paul to advise the crew not to leave the harbor because there was going to be a great storm. But the sailors were impatient to get to a better harbor, so they ignored what God had told them through Paul (Acts 27:9-12) and off they headed right into a dreadful storm.

My point, impatience is what gets us into trouble most of the times. Everywhere, you find so many people who are impatient to get a new job, get rich, get a new car or impatient to get married. They don’t take time to check things out with God, so they sail right off into the awaiting storms that rick their lives.

Thousands are those who get into storms because they got the wrong guidance from those they considered experts. The sailors were so eager to get sailing and so instead of listening to Paul, they listened to their captain whom they considered the expert. That’s how they ended up in a devastating storm.

Many people get themselves into trouble because they often rely on circumstances. There was a gentle south wind. The sailors thought they had gotten their wish because the circumstances looked favorable. It is completely foolish and unwise to ignore what God says, even if circumstances tend to contradict it. Things may look so good right now, but you may be sailing right into a storm.

I am sure you know many people who often say, “Well, this decision must be okay because I feel really good about it.” The fact is that feelings often lie. If God says, “Wait in the harbor,” you had better wait in the harbor.

Wonders Never Ends

Dear lovely people,

On TV that evening was a movie that Sango has been longing to watch. Relaxed in his sofa with a glass of whiskey in hand, he was smiling in rhythm with the tempo of the action movie. Before he knew it, the clock in his sitting room announced 1:00 am. Hurriedly, he went to bed.

It was 7:30 am the next morning when Sango rushed out of his bathroom and into his clothes. Waiting outside was his daughter who insisted when Sango came out of his room that he must drop her off in school and off they went. From his daughter’s school, Sango braved the unbelievably heavy traffic towards his meeting venue. It was as if all the cars in Yaounde were out on the road at the same time. He arrived the meeting thirty minutes behind schedule and met with some enraged committee members. 

Sango realized before the end of his presentation that it was the worst in his entire career. He made many more mistakes during the presentation than he had made in a couple of years. Without any surprise, he lost the opportunity to secure funding for his most cherished project. He could not imagine that after investing three tiresome months preparing for that presentation, he lost the opportunity.

That makes you want to say wonders shall never end isn’t it? How many Sangos do you know today? I mean people who invest so much time, energy and resources on a course and either mess it up at the last minute or abandon it all together when they realize    they can’t maintain the standards.

Why would wonders end when many are those who think that things will just work out in their favor simply because they have great dreams? Wonders will surely never end until we clearly understand that dreams only become reality when determination, decisive action and persistence is put to work. Your dreams will not get better just because you’ve invested time and energy in them. They will get better because you have consistently invested your energy and resources in them at the right time and in the right dosage.

The bottom line in whatever you do is that Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance and there is just no other way around it.

I Don’t Take It For Granted

Dear lovely people,

I was in Ghana recently where I went to a restaurant for a quick lunch. Sitting at the next table to me was this gorgeous lady and her beefy boyfriend enjoying their meal. At one moment, a waiter came with their bill, the girl was quick to ask how much and the waiter replied 1,000 Ghana Cedi equivalent to $259. The girl then opened her purse and gave the waiter three clean $100 bills telling him to keep the change. Honestly, my mouth was wide opened and my eyes popped out in total disbelief.

When the waiter was gone, the guy asked her "baby why didn't you allow me to take care of the bill?" It was then the girl said something that really impressed me. She told the guy that she's not after his money and that the only thing she needs from him is his love, care and attention. At that point, I almost fainted. I wondered aloud if such girls still existed in Africa, let alone Ghana. Then I got my answers, I heard a commanding voice ''cut, cut, cut!!” and I shouted "Okayyy, so you guys where on set, goodness! So it was all a movie in the making? No wonder!!

 

They were on set for sure but what about you? Is your life a movie scene? Whether in our love or professional lives, many are the times people take certain things for granted. It’s almost customary to find a man paying the bills on almost all outings with a lady to the extent that when it happens the other way round, eyebrows are raised and so you can understand my bewilderment at that particular instant.

 

Anytime you receive something on a regular basis, you quickly develop a tendency to take that something for granted over time. I remember when my friend Paul, had his first job. He truly felt elated each and every time he received a paycheck. In fact, he used to save all of his paystubs and I remember him proudly displaying his first paycheck on his desk at home. It didn’t take very long for those feelings to fade. Only after about 2 months into his first job, he stopped thinking about getting paid altogether and just expected money to show up in his bank account every month end.

Paul became complacent with his job and his lifestyle. He lived in a fairly expensive part of town. His house rents where exorbitant and he without a doubt was heavily indebted and more to it, he was the sole bread earner for his family as well.

Then he got fired from his job one fateful day and because he took his steady paychecks for granted, he completely lost it when all of it was suddenly taken away. How was he going to cover the expenses and the debts? How was he going to provide for his family? Taking things for granted is a perfect shortcut to utter desperation.

Now let me ask you, in troubled economies such as those most of us live in, do you really want to be dependent on a single income in which you have no control over? Are you spending in anticipation of your next paycheck? This might just be the time to review many aspects of your quest for success if you truly mean it.