Keep Moving

Keep moving, the sky shouldn't be your limit

Friend, I hope you are well today and before I forget... Happy New Year!

I'm fine, and I just want to share with you something for this new year...

Whatever you began last year or are planning to begin, keep doing it. Move forward. Keep moving, keep going.
No matter how small the difference is between where you were yesterday (or last year) and where you are right now, keep moving.
No matter the increase in the number of obstacles you face, keep moving. Keep going.
You can't afford to be a useless stone: one without breath, without use, without life and without progress.
You can't afford to be in the same place being pitied upon and being used as a mud scrapper. You gotta move.
But if you choose to be a stone, be that good stone, be the useful stone: the one they use to build upon the foundation that is Christ. Be that stone that grinds wheat into flour, that one that every ship anchor seeks for.
Be the useful good stone.

Friend, most of us will tell you that you haven't made quite a change, that you have two pairs of legs: one pair that that moves you forward and another that moves you backwards. 
Ignore us.
Most of us think we know who or what you are. We may remind you of your shortcomings, your upbringing and your limitations.
We may do so verbally or non-verbally, actively or passively. 
We may omit you in groups of "forward-seeing people" or group you together with "losers".
We may ridicule, heckle, yell and tell you that all you are doing is to no good.
But keep moving. Ignore us, don't listen to us, and keep moving. 
If you are convinced that what you are today isn't what you were yesterday, and that what you will be tomorrow is excellent, keep moving.
We ain't your God and we are not your goals. You shouldn't please all of us. We are not God, so keep moving. 
You should worry more about whether God is on your side or not; not us.

By the way, friend, you only need two people in your fan base: God and you.
If there be a third one, let it be; if not, keep moving. Ain't nobody got time for negative energy.
Please don't listen to us most of the time - we who pretend to support you yet disappear when you need us most or speak nonsense behind your back. Don't. 
Listen to your God, listen to your goals and vision, then maybe listen to us when we agree with these two. If not, stop listening to us.
We are bad influence. We are bad influence because we think we know who you are and where you are headed. We don't.
We think you're like us. You're not. Whenever you realize that we think you are like us, don't listen to us. You'll lose it.

Friend, lastly, let me tell you this... 
If you wanna go to the studio and record a song this year, go. Don't give a damn what we gotta say if God says it's a great idea. Go!
But do so with humility.
If you wanna write a book, start a mentorship program, open a blog, start a business, build a home, start a family, go back to school, move from where you are to another town, start a side hustle, reapply for a job, start a school, get into a relationship, drop a habit, drop a friend or friends, join ministry, start a project, propose to your girl and God says He's got your back, go!
You're unstoppable if God is on your side. 
The sky shouldn't be your limit, the sky is your lauchboard. So, go!
And, friend, if there'll come a time along the way when you doubt yourself, look to God, put your hope in Him, lean on His promises, scoff at the devil, look right ahead... and keep moving. 
You can do this. 

Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always. (Psalm 105:4)

Bonface Morris.

Personal Growth: Here's What You Need to Know About Growth

Quote: Grow! Because you can, because you should and because it is good. - Me

Guys, I've been wanting to write. True story. You know, like when I wake up and I just wanna pen down my first blog of the year and stuff like that; like I wanna tell you people, "Alright, I know. It is a new year and I need to unload all my petty wisdom onto a blog to leave y'all oooh-ing and aaah-ing e.t.c. e.t.c. while at the same time I'm trying to play God by giving you instructions on how to walk through the year..."? But then, when I'm almost grabbing my phone and/or keyboard to type that "gibberish" and bring life to this cursor, life happens, and I postpone it into the next day.

(Come on, maybe I'll beat this cursor at its own wars this year, who knows?)

And I've been forgiving myself to have been doing this over and over again. (And this is not the "forgive yourself and move on" kind of mantra-ish cliche, but the "forgive yourself because you deserve it" type.)

So, I've ended up writing.

This post is for everyone. It is for those of us who make resolutions at the beginning of the year, the ones who think of a New Year as a "new beginning", as something breathed by a god, some gift from God, as an opportunity, as a brand new page, blah blah blah... And it is also for those of us who make resolutions and set goals throughout the year, those who only see the 1st of January as the result of a ticking clock once made possible by an infinitely eternal God. (Time is in His hands, no? He created time. Time is because He was.) These ones look at a New Year as a mere change to the calendar(s) of men (anyway, even mankind disagrees on dates and times...) and that what was will continue to be unless man decides to make such and such a change.

This blog is for the planner and also for the one person who is reluctant to take action; for the fearless and the bold. It is for everyone. It is for the one who acknowledges that growth (undergoing development and achieving a specific level of maturity) is necessary because we can grow, we should  grow and because it is good to grow.

Now, whoever you are and wherever you are, here are the few things to note about personal growth and achieving a better you:

1. Personal growth is more about you than it's about us.
Rant all you want about all you've been through, about where you are, about where you come from, about all the "fake" people you grew up amongst (there ain't nothing like that anyways), about your level of education or your limited exposure to it, about your lack of "connections", about how "unkempt" and directionless your leaders are, about your tiny church na watu unadhani hawaoni mbele, about the limited resources that are at your disposal, but you know what? It doesn't take anyone else to change you. It only takes you to begin the change in you. You are the first step towards your own personal growth. You are the first bold and unequalled step towards a better you. You are. Other people have so tiny an effect on what you choose and decide for yourself. So work on how you view growth as an individual, rather than how you see it through the eyes of those around you. It's all about you. (And God helping you make it of course.)

2. Growth occurs differently in everyone and it takes different courses and amounts of time.
You can't say, "I wanna be slim like so-and-so in the same way/time they achieved it." You'll die, man. And we'll bury you. And that'll be end of the story. But you can say, "I wanna lose weight, drop a bad habit or two, become better in such and such a thing only the way I can, so dear Lord, give me all the Wisdom, will, skill, people and strength I need in order to achieve this." Then you'll make it.
Here's how it goes: you may use another person's success or progress to measure your level of growth, BUT NEVER use it to compare the two of you in relation to the same area of growth. You'll die. And we'll bury you. (And, of course, we'll eat at your funeral.) Then that'll be the end of the story.

3. It doesn't matter what people are saying. If you're on the right track, keep going.
You cannot grow unless you shut your ears to all kinds of naysayers. Don't allow your motivation to be thwarted by prophets of doom. If you're on the right track, and God agrees with it, honey, keep going. You'll make it.

4. There are things that change through declaration, then there are things that change through hard work, effort and commitment. Notice the difference.
Lemme say that again: prayer and claiming God's promises in Scripture are good. All great (yes, not "good", not "average", but "great") Christians should practice both. But those two should never replace hard work, commitment, faithfulness, dedication, determination, truth and focus. Let God play His part as you do yours. 

You may pray all you want, but always remember "Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth." (Proverbs 10:4, NIV) and God blesses the works of our hands, not empty talk: (Psalms 90:17, NIV) "May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us - yes, establish the work of our hands.")

5. Do what needs to be done, and stop calling it a resolution.
Yes, sometimes we just need to do what should be done. It's called growing up. It's called maturity. It's called taking responsibility. And most of such stuff ain't no resolution.
You know when people should just pay their tithe, or love and care for their bae or family, or pray and read Scripture via their Bible apps and they claim these are resolutions?
Resolution? What resolution? You SHOULD be doing those things already. Just do them, man/lady.

6. If your growth may depend on another person in one way or another, then they need to be focused on achieving it in the same way you do.
Yes, the success of some of our goals may be intertwined with other people and what they do. And yes, that can bring us to a real slowdown if the other party reiterates on a go-slow.
Relationships or marriage or worship teams or an organization at startup level or a business are such examples. Anything involving the absolute consensus of two separate entities can only succeed when both parties unanimously agree that the page they are opening and the growth they want to experience is what it should be. (So help us Dear Lord.)

7. It's normal not to grow all the time. You shouldn't grow all the time.
That "what's the next big thing" mentality is a dangerous mentality. It's not a bad one, but it puts us in a dangerous place. It makes us think we are failures the moment growth isn't experienced.
God rested. On the seventh day, He rested. That doesn't mean that He wasn't doing anything. Rest is something. Rest helps us reflect on growth, so that when growth pauses, we may use that time to reflect on things and say, "Yeah, it is good. So far, it is good." Rest helps us use that time to see where we may have overgrown or "undergrown".

So now, in conclusion, God desires that we grow. All the time. And no matter the perspective we may have about a new year and personal growth, here's one verse that proves God desires continuous growth in us: Psalms 1:3 (NIV) "He (the Christian) is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."

Bonface Morris.

2015, I Promise

I don’t make New Year resolutions. I don’t. I just get into the New Year and continue from where I left off the previous year. I don't make New Year resolutions but I DO set goals for myself to guide my path into the next season. I may do that in the middle of the year, at the beginning or whenever. I'm just not into that New Year hysteria that grasps most of us...

Does that make me any different? Eh, and does it make me a proud person? Maybe. Am I proud of it? Yes. Why? I don't know.  

As you have already realized, I have decided to do things differently this year: I chose not to impulsively post in the first week of the year giving you hints on how I/you will run your life this year. I am not God. I have promised myself not to play God anywhere in your life or mine. Playing God is tough. I gat no skin for that... God is the only one that knows where we are headed to, how to go there, when and why... I can't do that... but all I can do is give direction. I can point you/us in a certain direction using God's words of Wisdom.

So what does that make me? A wise person? No. Wisdom is overrated. Mostly actually... It just makes me a messenger though: a servant who also depends on the same instructions I am sent to deliver.  

Okay, again, just to remind you; inasmuch as we say God is in control and we ain't trying to play Him, it does not entirely mean that we have to just sit around and wait for things/life to happen to us. No. People who do that end up more frustrated with life than you and I who choose to make a few steps or changes in/with our lives. Such people run around (or hang around) desiring change they cannot achieve. They expect too much of people and God without proving that they are worthy of the outcome. They wait for life to be born, fed and clothed as they watch. That takes forever; and the sad thing about it is that when it happens - when life/God happens after that forever - they can’t celebrate it that much... Because it won’t be that sweet for their celebration.

                             A victory after a war you have not fought in is not as sweet as that attained 

                                                            after the struggle of engaging in battle…

Now, considering that it is a New Year, and that learning is one of the best things that can happen to an individual (especially one that seeks to put in practice whatever they have learned), I will share with you in this month lessons learned from 2014 and tips that will not only put us in perspective with seeing life as “the big picture” it is, but that will also enhance our personal and spiritual growth. Maybe I'll convince you to be an all-round person who seeks growth in and out of season. Maybe.

So, to begin with, have you made any New Year  resolutions (yet)? Have you promised yourself to do a few things (God willing) for yourself, for those around you and for God? Do you have a list (either in your heart/mind or in writing/print) tucked away somewhere? Well, I am here to congratulate you. You are doing well (at least for now...) and are better than me.

..................................................................

WordWeb Dictionary defines a resolution as “a decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner”.

With this definition in mind, it means that we make resolutions all the time (or that we ought to make resolutions all the time). This also makes me wonder why people go in a frency over a New Year. A New Year is just a continuation of days from the previous days of a now ending year – but with different dates. We go into a New Year as the same people we were in the previous year. Nothing changes overnight. Really.

The truth about life is that there are things/resolutions that you made last year (probably 80% or more) that still stand unresolved or untouched, or that you tried, reached halfway and lost momentum to pursue. Also, if you are fond of making deep reflections on how your life is fairing on, it is likely that you are disappointed with yourself, with God or with the people around you that were to be part of the success or completion of those resolutions. You also are aware that after attending an overnight prayer meeting (kesha) on New Year's eve, nothing actually changed. It only helped in changing your attitude for this year, but your life still needs lots of your input.

You see, I'm just aligning you with reality: debts haven't disappeared (yet), your health still stinks as it was before Christmas, your pockets and financial life may even be in a worse state than before Christmas, you probably still own only a pair of shoes (one danging pair!!), your relationships life is still in a mess, you still have temper/anger issues, trust issues, food issues, friends issues, church issues, pride issues, boredom issues, lust issues... and so forth and so on.

That's the reality of things.

But let's twist it a little... What if you really desired change? What if you chose to pray to the LORD God to help you sort out your wretched life one piece at a time? What if you forgot about those empty, hysterical and impulsive New Year urges to make "New Year resolutions" and sought to do something different? What if you decided to work on your life diligently and steadily one moment and step at a time? What if you saw your life with the big picture in mind and not just as an enclosure or a portrait or a painting within a year? Maybe things would change, right?

That's how I'm convincing you to look at new years. Maybe you'll have something to celebrate at the end of this one. (For, by the way, there is always something to celebrate.)

Below, I'm listing things you can promise yourself to do (which are not hard to follow in any way) for your own daily personal growth as you look BEYOND 2015:-

1.      Allow the Lord to deal with you as He pleases 

• As He pleases? Yeah, as He pleases. Or you can try playing God in your life and see how that ends. 
• Where is your level of submission as far as God and Christian ministry are concerned? Are you promising yourself to consciously serve more? You should do so.  
•  Is the LORD alone enough for you regardless of what happens in/to your life in this year or anytime or do you think you need more than Him? If the LORD is not what you only need to move on, then your focus is blurry and you are standing or sinking sand. 
• There are things that will happen to your life this year and thereafter that you have no explanation for. Leave it in the Hands of God. He knows better. He does. 
•  Promise yourself to understand that God does not move and work out things in our lives because of how much we know, speak or declare but according to our faith; that's why righteousness is not the substance of knowledge and deeds but of faith in what God says concerning us and Himself. We can't impress God by how much we know but by how much we believe in what He says. So standing up on the first week of the year to declare things we don't believe can happen is as futile as flying to Heaven on an aeroplane. It's like chasing after the wind: useless.

2.      Expect more from God and less from man 

• To get satisfaction, promise yourself to seek to satisfy others more than you seek to be satisfied by them. 
• Learn that if you sacrifice and give more more to God and fellow man, you find yourself. You find God too. And when you find Him, he teaches you to fully put your hope and trust in Him. 
•  Leaning on people will suck the spiritual strength out of you. Know that the closer a person becomes to you, the more a threat they are to your relationship with God if they're not helping you move closer to Him. 

                           If the LORD is not the only one you need for life to move on, then your focus is blurry 

      and you are standing on sinking sand.

3.      Work around being contended with the little you have as you learn patience 

• Mostly, God wants to teach us three basic things as His children: love, patience and faith. Our Christian lives move along these lines. If we keep on failing in perfecting ourselves concerning these three, our spiritual lives will keep moving in circles and we may not experience radical growth in anything we do. 
• Promise yourself to write down every new gift or blessing you receive from people and the LORD on your calendar. Give them a unique color.  Review them at the end of the year and see how faithful God has been to you in the year. Then your contentment would have grown to a whole new level.

4.      Make less promises to people, except to yourself. 

• You’ll be disappointed less in yourself and you'll let no-one down. You'll feel less guilty and become less depressed. 
• At least you won't be playing God, so you'll become humble as the days go by.

5.      A change of attitude at any time of the year is far greater than 20 untouched New Year resolutions  

• The proud and arrogant person always thinks that the only way to see the world clearly is through their own eyes. Yet the more we learn to see the world around us differently, the better we become at serving it and wanting to change it. 
• A change in attitude changes everything. It changes how we love people, how we respond to situations, how we relate with God, how we live in our new environments. It changes everything around us. Everything. 
• Change yourself first. After that, the world will take care of itself. 

6.      Nothing will change unless we take/make a step to change it first. 

• You only win a race you compete in. Cheerleaders are part of the team yeah, but cheerleaders never receive the award; so stop being a spectator expecting stuff to change and benefit you when you haven't worked or participated in it. 
• Life needs a makeover from time to time; it's sad that we get lost in the obvious until we miss what we should get in our seasons of change. It's only when we learn to adapt to and celebrate change that we bring change. 
• Practically, if you’re a fan of romance and fantasy books and novels or movies and TV series, you should promise yourself to read more of Christian literature and watch more of faith-oriented movies not just this year but throughout your life. This is change. I also want us to understand that some goals go beyond a year. Growth is not a one year thing. Growth is eternal. Change too, is eternal. 

                                                         Growth is eternal. Change too, is eternal.  

7.      Keep the list of your goals simple, doable and measurable. 

• Unrealistic goals will make you think you're a failure, while in true sense you may not be. This is why I prefer calling what most people call "resolutions", goals. Calling them "goals" (and I may only have one goal per season) makes it easier to spot them and run towards accomplishing them. 
• You may write down your resolutions/goals in bullet format on your phone/tablet/computer calender app. I always feed them into the 1st January slot, and once accomplished, I come back and check them by indicating the date the goal was fulfilled. You can always scroll back and see your progress as the days go by. A goal set last year may as well be achieved this year. In such a case, enter in both slots of 1st January, 2014 and 1st January, 2015 to show you how long it has taken to work it out.

 8.      All the goals we set are beyond our natural abilities to enact or achieve, so consult the LORD 

• You wanna get married this year yet you don't have a boy/girlfriend? Don't you think that requires God? Yes? 
• You want to buy land and build a home? Involve God. 
• You want to further your education and pay your own fees? Involve God. 
• You want to finish school, get employed and enjoy life? Involve God. 

No goal we set (even that which we think we can accomplish on our own like taking our better halves for a date night) can be fruitful without involving God. He knows the way, so why not let Him lead?

This ain't the end.

I'll be back.

Bonface Morris. 

A Relationship? Are You Ready for One?

I woke up today to a discussion on Twitter by one Tera Carissa Hodges (Twitter handle - @teracarissa) on marriage and why marriages today don’t work at all; or why there are less and less marriages happening today… In that discussion, she had wanted to VET 12 single men and 12 single women so that they may not have any catfish “false identity” issues and therefore do matchmaking... That was rather out of place, considering that I was just passing through my tweets before attending church…

After reading through, and while I was dressing up, I had to be pondering about such statements that I list below as responses from various people who responded to her question and/or request;

-          Kenneth Townsend (a guy) said, “Because mature people keep fishing in the WRONG pond. KNOW YOUR WORTH. Know yourself. Know God FIRST!”

-          Ni’sa Coleman (a lady) asked, “What if you have absolutely no one to choose from or the ones to choose from have the mindset of a teenage boy, or are feminine?”

-          Melanie Williams (a lady) said, “Relationships should be based on Biblical principles. HE who finds the wife finds a good thing, but often are looking for a trophy...”

-           Veronica T (a lady) said, “Being the shoulder he cries on, just so he can give his smiles to the next... we can’t be about that life. Men need God to heal...”

-          Donnie Trump (a guy) said, “A pebble and a diamond are equal only to a blind man. Not seeing someone’s worth can cause us to lose that someone...”

-          Jessica Smith (a lady) said, “I am Ruth [of the Bible], just waiting for my Boaz... in due season...”

-          Heart on a Page (a guy) said, “The spirits of Jezebel, Mammon and Beelzebub cause us to focus on money, status and bodies instead of the person’s inner beauty...”

And this went on and on...addressing the underlying issues to the given problem...

The above is what inspired me to write this post even though I had earlier decided that I won’t be posting on this blog “till January smiles at us...”

The reality of failing relationships is too hard for us young people to keep in track with. There is always a possibility all around us of us (or our friends) running through several relationships before any of us gets himself/herself into a stable relationship. Failing relationships or the lack of any has become a way we all pass through before deciding to get married. Relationships have even lost meaning to some young people. The pain, the destruction(s) involved, the reality of losing people you thought were life partners, the shame of not being ‘hooked’ or attached to someone at a given age, the loneliness, the problems that those “ex” bring with them… have made most of us not to even give relationships a try... We fail even before we have tried...

A review of an average person from childhood to teen age, trailing down to adulthood has slots of experiences that make some methods of dealing with relationships quite efficacious – or so we are made to think. Efficacious because we all are known to want ‘to make things work out’. We hate being tagged failures as young people – especially when it comes to relationships, because nothing matters to us young people more than having good ad healthy relationships, ama?

Some young people have ‘gained’ experience in matters of relationships (as they seem to show us), some have blamed God along the way whenever their relationships fail to work out, some still blame others for the failure of a relationship or the lack of one thereof, some think that “they can’t be played anymore” thus the vigor to engage in meaningful relationships fades with time. It is a graph that draws deeper with increase in time.

But again another closer look at relationships that have failed and why they DID fail is a better place to start from when trying to understand the mystery of relationships. You can start with finding out parts of yourself that made (or have made) mistakes in the previous relationship, ask yourself if you have known your strengths and weaknesses, if you have forgiven the wrongs in your previous relationship(s) and so on…Find out if you really need a new relationship or if you need time to heal (with assistance of God and good advice of course) before committing yourself to another relationship. Find out if you have gotten over your past [bad/unhealthy] relationship(s). Then after considering the above factors, you may accept yourself to be ready for a new relationship in the coming year…

Blaming God for a failed relationship is not reason enough, nor is blaming fellow men or the one you broke up with. I don’t always think that getting the ‘right’ person is the problem, but the kind of preparations and readiness a person gets through while aspiring to engage in a relationship.

And for those who are starters, I prefer that you know your priorities for now. Relationships call for quite a lot (which I am going to discuss below) and hunting for a person to get hooked to may not be the best thing for you to do. Hunting means that you are becoming desperate. Desperation means that you are likely to bend the rules along the way in order to get yourself what you think you want. And bending the rules means that you are growing stupid. It may seem cruel on my side to tell you so, but it is the truth.

If you are undergoing pressure (from family or friends), be frank to tell them that you will get into a relationship when you are READY – and ‘ready’ in this case means a lot more than ‘ready’.

What I call a healthy relationship is that which should help to define you and seek to make you better; but not one which changes you (or seeks to change you) and to make you a weird slave to someone… Remember that true love does not enslave, but sets free…

If you aspire, as one of your many resolutions for the coming year (2013), to get into a healthy and meaningful relationship, look deeper through the following facts which may help you gauge your readiness for a relationship; 

1. Are you really ready for a relationship? Any relationship?Are you spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and socially ready to become part and parcel of another person’s life? If not, stop right there and build yourself up into a person that can be depended upon – one who is reliable when tied to another.
2. Are you mature enough to adequately handle the conflicts and meet the many needs and demands in a relationship? If not, stop right there and grow up. Yeah, grow up my friend.
3. Are you ready to openly communicate both your fears and strengths to another person without giving it too much thought? If not, go and build yourself up in the area of honesty and faithfulness. Relationships are neither for people who play so-called mind games, nor for those who want others to guess everything about everything concerning them…
4. Are you ready to love someone unconditionally and care for another person without showing or living in selfishness? If not, Christ can teach you a better lesson in that. Go to Him and allow Him to show you what selflessness is all about…
5. Are you ready to support and help another person without complaining or being pestered to do so? If not, go out there and learn more on how to please, compliment, help and support your significant other without feeling disgusted about it. You don’t want to suffocate your relationship, do you? Side note: Do these things knowing that you are still not married to the other person, but that you want them to feel secure and appreciated around you…Don’t act as if you guys are married – that boundary is too steep to cross, so don’t cross it!
6. Are you ready to respect and honor someone of the opposite sex without showing arrogance? If not, go to Jesus. He is the best teacher when it comes to lessons concerning humility and honor…
7. What new thing are you going to add to this person’s life that was not there but that is beneficial to them? Are you going to bring in more garbage from your past relationship, or from your mom’s advice log, or your dad’s diary, or from your friends’ ‘to-do-list’? Watch out on what good thing you will bring into your new relationship!
8. Are you ready to encourage someone selflessly and sacrifice to meet someone’s emotional and social needs? If not, go learn, Google, do woreva it may take to know how to sacrifice your time, your prayers, your mind, your words… and give out one or two things (not sex, pliiiiiz!) Side note: I swear that relationships sometimes need the cruelest of sacrifices! You should be ready for them…
9. Have you gotten over your past relationship(s)? Have you healed from them? If not, understand that whoever you are going to meet next will be an altogether different person from the one you were with previously… so tread your steps slowly, wisely…
10. Are you getting into a relati9onship with the right motives? Are you acting out of peer pressure? Or a surge of hormones? Or insecurity? If your motives ain’t right, go rectify yourself first. You don’t want to break someone’s heart and shutter their life, do you?

 

As for me, um chilled out…

Plan well for your coming year…

Bonface Morris.