Stuff I Learned and Discovered Last Year (2016 Edition)

Stuff I learned from 2016

This is a summary of my journal entries from the year 2016 in point form. 2016 was a year of deep learning for me by the way. Feel free to pick quotes from these lessons: that's what  they are for anyway.

If you may be interested in more entries from previous years, read more on what I learned in 2013 here, in 2014 here and in 2015 here.

*******

Lessons on life and personal growth

1. Sometimes you stick in the same place for a while not because you don't want to grow, but because you want others to come to where you are. At such times, you only grow inward because growth on the outside will cause an imbalance. And you don't want that.

2. If you want to know something more about the character of a mother, look at her sons. Sons almost always replicate the mannerisms of their mothers. Almost always. 

I observed a few mother-son relationships and discovered this: a boy is almost always as good or as bad as his mother.

3. Probably, one of the worst things in the world is to have a useless voice; a voice that is always sidelined and neglected. A ghost voice.

People with ghost voices are very defensive; sometimes from within but mostly it is seen in how they decide to not follow and do things with the masses.

4. Don't waste time thinking too much and worrying about tomorrow's outcome that you have no control over; instead, enjoy and work out today to your level best. At least when tomorrow comes, you'll be proud that you did your best today.

5. In 2016, I came to appreciate the importance of hard cover books; not fully though. They came in handy when power blackouts came about.

6. Everyone has an opinion on everything. Even silence, in and of itself, is an opinion.

7. You choose who to befriend. You choose who to propose to. You choose who to marry. It's your choice. The only thing you don't choose is when you'll die.

8. It seems everyone wants to be part of a great story, but very few are ready to be part of the making of that story. Always remember this: that every great thing you see took time and effort.

9. War always precedes greatness.

10. Here is the one single advice I'd give to this generation (both the young and old): listen first, react later.

11. Always know when to give up on an argument or discussion because some people just won't lose - even after realizing they are wrong.

12. Make friends with elderly people: both men and women. Tap from their wisdom on life, family and investment. It may be the best free advice you can ever receive in your whole petty life.

13. Be content with the fact that not everyone will agree with you, no matter how smart you are.

14. This is how scary wisdom has become: for every smart thing you're going to say in this world, always know that there's someone somewhere who knows a little more than you do but they have chosen to say nothing about it.

15. "Online" is now a real place: with buildings, with people, with personalities, with relationships, with cars, with jobs, with churches, with feelings, with clubs, with malls, with roads, with homes, with playgrounds... Online is a place.

16. And don't compare yourself to other people because there will always be someone who is better than you. Appreciate yourself as the best of yourself. That always works.

17. There is now the emergence of something I call "soft pride" where someone agrees that what you're telling them is the right and true thing to do but decide to do against it because they - as individuals or in the present culture they live in - think it doesn't apply to them. 

18. There are days when life requires that you simply stand still, days when you walk, days when you go sprinting, then days when life throws you in for a marathon. Never mix them up.

19. Listening to eBooks by converting them to audiobooks using a Windows Software called Balabolka happened to me last year. It made my ebook-reading life so sweet.

20. Always discern the difference between people respecting you and fearing you, between people envying you and refusing to give you support.

21. This generation is so excited about #Hashtags as if they are THE SOLUTION. They are not THE SOLUTION. They may be part of the solution, but they are not THE solution.

22. That one thing we fail at most but which is required almost everywhere, by everyone and in everything, is consistency. We lack discipline, and that is a problem.

23. The more open-minded you are, the less you judge. I wrote something on open-mindedness here.

Lessons on relationships, family and marriage

1. Relationships do not survive on love. Relationships survive on friendship, on mutual agreement and on trust. Love isn't overrated, but its role is to complement these three (friendship, mutual agreement and trust) and to ensure they smoothly work in unison.

2. I learned that most people don't talk about the real issues in relationships: finances, sex, faithfulness, work, ministry etc. They don't take real steps towards change because they think they'll change once they're married. This is one of the biggest misconceptions about marriage.

3. If you're single and you happen to meet a saved lady or guy that understands what contentment is, don't let her go before you make her yours. It's hard nowadays to get a person that isn't a gold digger, saved or not. 

4. Treat every date you have with your girlfriend as if it's your first date.

5. Things are not what they seem. Campus students, parents, Christians and everyone else should always remember this. Get the details first before making noise about something or fully appreciating anything.

6. If love to you means spending a lot of money, then you have not known love.

Lessons on leadership

1. The level of our commitment is shown in our consistency, not in our good words.

2. Greatness is when you ask for help even when you think you don't need it.

3. I sat down and wrote two constitutions for different groups I lead in church: the Youth and the Worship Team. It proved quite exhausting but it is becoming very key in bringing the change we all desire.

4. Reasonable millennials desire authenticity more than they crave "coolness". Always know that. 

PS: I actually wrote a blog about this here.

5. Never underestimate the intelligence of your readers and listeners.

6. A leader should never expect those under him/her to pursue a vision that the leader is not into; unless that leader is only a leader by title and not by action.

7. As a leader you need to learn to respect people's decisions, whether good or bad.

8. As a leader, be a person of your word. Be the first one to be faithfully committed to the words you say. People only trust people who do what they say they will do.

9. People follow the momentum given by the leader. When he/she says that they can't, it's almost true that the whole team can't.

10. As a leader, learn to face the outcome of your decisions whether good or bad.

11. Ideas are great; but ideas without an actionable plan, they are just wishful thinking.

12. I am a horrible counselor, but I can make a good coach. Why? Because I am too action-oriented. Just sitting around listening to someone without offering direction feels offensive to me. 

13. Have nothing to do with people who think that you can't slay giants. You are made for more.

14. Leadership within meetings is a one-sided kind of leadership. Very ineffective.

15. If someone else can do it, please allow them to do it.

And then there was a whole blog on what I have learned in leadership in the past 10 years. read it here.

Lessons on Christian living

1. The tragedy is not knowing Scripture. No. The tragedy within most of us Christians today is resolving to speak out Scripture only in order to sound "spiritual". We actually don't believe what it is saying. That's the tragedy. We argue with God because we think His ideas are outdated. That's the tragedy.

2. I've realized one thing in my walk with God: that in order to mesmerize us, He has a habit of coming in full force to help us just after we have given up on ourselves.

3. I discovered that people's understanding of the Christian life and how it should be lived is messed up. People excuse quite a number of things, including; sex before marriage, worrying, lack of faith, conforming to the world e.t.c.

4. People want perfection, God wants brokenness; people want to give you praise, God wants to make you whole. Notice the difference.

5. God and man may give you advice/counsel, (which you may choose to accept or reject), but it has always been and it will always be your choice.

6. The past will always haunt us. It is therefore our responsibility to make today a better past for tomorrow; so that whatever will haunt us tomorrow from today will be good memories, a stable and praiseworthy foundation and a life lived for the glory of God.

7. God is always in a good mood.

8. The problem today is not that there are no answers in life; the problem is that we give up so fast. We give up so fast on almost everything: on God, on friends, on family, on people, on systems, on our relationships and marriages, on life... we give up so fast. That's the problem.

Various quotes from books, podcasts, movies, TV shows, sermons and various web articles
1. God does not drive an ambulance - Pastor Matt Chandler.

2. Being a leader is not about being perfect, it's about weathering a storm and carrying on - 

from The Last Ship (TV Show), Season 2 Episode 9.

3. Sometimes saving one life - if it's the right life - is enough - 

from Person of Interest (TV Show), Season 5 Episode 13.

4. There are 3 words you should drop from your leadership vocabulary starting now: someone, something and someday. Read more here. 

5. A woman that can be bought isn't worth having. - 

from Marvel's Daredevil (TV Show), Season 1 Episode 4.

6. Instagram leads to depression - Pastor Matt Chandler.

7. Dating without the intent of getting married is like going to the grocery store with no money. You either leave unsatisfied or you take something that isn’t yours - Jefferson Bethke.

8. I picked up a number of quotes from an interview Perry Noble (a pastor) had with Mark Driscoll (Google him if you don't know him - that's one pastor who knows how to bounce back!). Here are the quotes:
(a) In this internet age, communication has become instant, constant, global and permanent.
(b) There are three kinds of people leaders deal with: wise (are teachable and learn from their mistakes), foolish (these just want to argue and shift blames) and evil (they just want to hurt you.)
(c) The fruit of a good theology is love. A good theology results in loving relationships. 

9. As you search for the truth about God, understand that it's best to deal with the subject of sin before you deal with the subject of prayer. When you ask God to forgive you for the things you've done, your sin will no longer be a barrier in your relationship with Him. 

- from my Devotionals. 

10. Atheism is not an ignorance problem but a preference problem: preferring self to God - John Piper. 

11. In the end, our success is not about us, it's all about God. You take Him out of the equation, you got nothing - Hillsong UNITED's Joel Houston in an interview about their movie "Hillsong - Let Hope Rise".

12. Consistency separates winners from wannabes, and diligence makes the difference between all-time greats and one-hit wonders - Pastor Steven Furtick.

13. Quotes from Elevation Church's #CodeOrangeRevival 2016: 

(a) There is a sound for revival and there is a rhythm for revival, but the time of revival is NOW - Christine Caine.

(b) Revival is when God shows me who I am today and besides that, He also unleashes the picture of me after an extraordinary encounter with Him, and asks me, "Hey, which one do you wanna be?"

(c) God can do the impossible, and He often calls us to do the impractical. - Levi Lusko. 

(d) Evidently, our world glorifies the finished product, but God glorifies the process. - Carl Lent (Senior Pastor, Hillsong New York).

(e) Do not focus on the platform, focus on faithfulness. If it is God’s plan for your life, allow Him to bring you the platform. And because your focus has always been on faithfulness, this will then sustain your platform. 

(f) It is impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature - Peter Scazzero

14. I date music, but I'm married to worship - Travis Greene. 

15. The four pillars that lead to ministry success are; (a) don't focus on growing the church, focus on growing people, (b) character and integrity (not charisma) (c) humility and (d) generosity - 

from an interview between Rick Warren and Justin Blaney (founder of Innovate 4 Jesus.)

16. Yes, God is for us; but ultimately, God is for God - Pastor Matt Chandler. 

17. Ladies, imagine your future sons turning out like your boyfriend. If that thought makes you cringe, you should probably break up - Jefferson Bethke.

18. We are not waiting for the move of God, we are the move of God - Pastor Steven Furtick.

19. At the center of our anxiety is our pride - Pastor Steven Furtick. 

20. If you cannot be honest with yourself, how can you get the truth out of anyone else? - 

from Quantico (TV Show).

21. You will never know your capacity, how far you can go, until you accept a challenge - Pastor Steven Furtick.

22. Your freedom affects more than just you - Cameron McAllister, RZIM.

23. The idea of love in the absence of truth is meaningless - Michael Ramsden, RZIM. 

24. Quotes from LEADING YOUNG (a leadership hard cover book by one Gibson Anduvate): your leadership will be determined by what motivates your decisions. If you want to be the kind of leader who wields true life-giving influence, you must choose to serve... and... many aspire to leadership but few have what it takes. The younger generation of leaders is looking for role models and mentors but they are few and hard to come across. 

Bonface Morris.

Stuff I Learned and Discovered Last Year (2015 Edition)

Life lessons, 2015 Edition

Since 2013, I've been capturing and noting down a few lessons along the way as the years pass by: things that have made me raise my eyebrows for good reasons.

You can read the lessons from 2013 here in the 2013 Edition and from 2014 here in the 2014 Edition.

This post lists a few inputs from what I captured last year. This does not make me wise, but just keen and observant. (Petty sometimes, as someone I knowy8u recollects.) I encourage you to note down a few of your own on every single moment of your life. You may end up realizing that, after all, your years are really never wasted; and that almost every step of your life has something to teach you.

Here goes...

Lessons on life and personal growth
1. I learned was that there are at least three things you should have done to yourself as a normal person by the end of a year:
(a) You've called yourself stupid a couple of times
(b) You've called yourself great and,
(c) You've called yourself awesome
This is because no one is consistently the same thing throughout the year; only dead people are that way.

2. The world lacks peace makers, it lacks reasonable people. But it is full of go-getters and "fighters". It is like everyone wants to fight and win. Many crisis would be solved only if we had the intervention of people seeking to mend the world, not to tear it apart.

3. We change nothing by keeping quiet. We all should be whistle blowers - shouting and screaming to save a world that is being haunted by injustice and hypocrisy. And not only whistle-blowers, but doers of the very deeds that save the world.

4. By increasing the good use of my idle and wasted time by committing my 15 to 30 minutes a day to reading an ebook ( I have a problem with reading paperback books) or listening to podcasts while cooking, washing or heading home, I achieved some sort of multitasking capability which made me learn quite a lot in such a small amount of time. (This was after my laptop broke down somewhere at the beginning of 2015. All things work for good, no?)

2. The momentum you begin a year is important; and much better is the zeal with which you'll work it out. But what matters most is what you do in the course of the year and how you end it, not how you begun it.

3. Podcasts happened to me last year. I downloaded a few, I'm following a few, and I ain't regretting it.

4. People move on. If you don't, your bad.

5. Most of the things we possess are due to comparing ourselves to others and our endless clinging on competition. If we were to be left alone in this world, we would have so little - just what is enough and necessary for our basic upkeep.

6. People who say nothing online are always present. They are like ghosts; vicious ghosts that are ready to stalk you, pounce on you, read and analyze your every post and become your biggest critics while offline on in your inbox. I've learned to ignore them. I ignore them because life is full of people who do nothing but are always criticizing people who do everything meaningful. They are like the devil: he does nothing but is always here criticising the good we do which he is incapable of doing.

7. The more educated you are, the pettier and more choosy you become. (I'll quote Malcolm Muggeridge on this one: "We have educated ourselves into imbecility...")

8. If you limit yourself to what you already know, how else are you going to change the world? The world is changed by people who take risks: those who choose to wade through the uncharted territory; not those who limit their possibilities to what they already know and what has already been proven and done.

9. A wise man that does not speak wisdom to a fool is in one way or another, the worst fool. 

10. That one thing that we have been equally given is time; you don't have more, I don't have less. At least God is fair, eh?

11. Life has four classes which we all need to simultaneously attend:
1. Of dealing with God.
2. Of dealing with self.
3. Of dealing with people and
4. Of dealing with books.
If we miss the balance while dealing with each, and in relation to others, we all get deformed.

Lessons on leadership and parenting
Note: Parenting lessons were learnt through observing various families around me. I am not an expert of any sort on this topic.
1. Speaking from a youth leader point of view, I think parents assume that young people have no right to audience. That they are only to be commanded, heckled at and ignored. You wanna know what escalates rudeness in young people? It's because you ignore everything they're trying to say.

2. I learned that vulnerability is a good thing for a leader. It's one of the best things that can ever happen to him/her and those under him/her.

3. That thing where parents dismiss a young person before they even try to explain themselves, whether right or wrong, births a drift between the two of them that will keep growing over time. They then should never wonder what happened to their once "good children", when everything falls apart some day and they don't seem to tell them anything.

4. Nobody follows a dumb person unless that dumb person is something close to Stephen Hawking.

5. Fathers and mothers are bringing up solid and empowered ladies/women. That's a great thing. O don't deny it, it is a great thing. But they're altogether forgetting to bring up solid and empowered gentlemen/men to compliment and/or match these ladies. The result is a world that is upside down. And ladies can rant all they want about not meeting so many "ideal men", but the main point still is: they should tell these mothers and fathers, "Please bring up men for us too. Or the world will have too much of our 'empowered' selves and abandon us in unchivalrous agony."

6. There's no great writer and/or leader who does not read. I discovered that writing takes the clutter that are the words in our minds and converts them into meaningful and decipherable statements to benefit people around us; reading is the yardstick that guides that process. 

7. I discovered that taking feedback from the people I lead is just as important as expecting them to give heed to and follow the instructions I give them. Leadership is two way.

Lessons on Christian living
1. God is our Father, not our servant. Once you realize how Sovereign He is, how Holy, how powerful and how exalted He is, you seize commanding Him to do things for you like most crazy Christians are doing today. You should go ask the prophet Isaiah about this for further clarification.

2. When you're open-minded, (I am doing a blog on open-mindedness which I'll drop soon), you tend to learn a few things :
(a) Not to see people as "a whole" but as individuals with unique choices i.e. a person from a specific tribe will be handled as an individual and separate from their tribal affiliation  e.t.c.
(b) To give people people a second chance and treat them beyond reasonable doubt as individuals who can change
(c) To refuse to think that you are a god and that you are immune to the things affecting these other people. You'll start seeing ladies who became pregnant before marriage differently, you see Willy Paul and Kanyari differently e.t.c.
(d) You start learning to see people as God sees them, thus no prejudice: broken, needy (for a Savior) and subject to change. You realize that anyone can change into anything if given chance.
(e) You become less judgmental but more appreciating; and you accept that anyone can be used of God and become anything. You don't start drawing lines/boundaries for who can be or cannot be your spouse based on your pettiness.

3. Christian conferences and seminars don't change anyone. They simply expose us to a wider range of possibilities, which is a very great thing to everyone seeking to grow and become better. Conferences challenge us to become better, but change itself is a choice anyone can make with or without attending a conference.

4. If we keep on kicking each other endlessly and mercilessly in the butt as Christians in the presence of the people who do not know or love God, they'll all eventually think: "Seriously, they can't even agree with each other nor genuinely love each other, so why should I trust them to have the best life so far? Is the good life in Jesus they are telling me about everyday even worthwhile?" That made me have quite some lengthy thoughts on John 13:35 (Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples.) It opened my eyes to what true Christianity is all about.

5. I think we spend too much time teaching people how to pray or evangelize that we rarely do it ourselves. We rarely pray or evangelize. Therefore, I concluded that evangelism seminars are useless if after everything, no-one goes out to evangelise. Music lessons are also useless if there won't be any singing after they're done.

6. I discovered that Christians in the market place are and could be the best evangelists and witnesses of Christ only if they utilize their opportunities well. (I picked this from one of Rick Warren's podcasts. See? Podcasts are a great thing. :-) )

7. It is very rare that someone who is not consistent with God could be consistent in life. Very rare.

Lessons on relationships and marriage
1. It's weird how people expect others to grow wise overnight or immediately after marriage. It is assumed that all married people are wise. But that's not the case because I am meeting so many married people who don't even know what they are doing in there. 
Example: Say I was gonna get married in a fortnight or so. After a couple of days, people will be expecting me to unleash words of wisdom to all "young people" I left behind as "youth". They forget that wisdom is not an overnight thing. If I can't practice using and delivering it now as a single person, it won't be there after I'm married. Wisdom is not an overnight thing. People should therefore allow the unmarried to be wise too. Because almost half of the New Testament was written by an unmarried apostle (Paul) and Christianity leans on the teachings of the Son of God who was never married. Oh yeah.

2. I confessed something to my bae (damn, this is personal). I told her this: Can I tell you how I love you? This is how I love you: I love you too much to not want to lose you. To want to always be with you. But I also love you knowing that nothing lasts forever except the things that concern the heaven of God.

3. Marry a woman who'll take care of your mother when you're abroad. 

4. I learned that one of the main causes of wrangles and divisions in families and relationships is when couples and family members stop waiting for each other apparently in everything: they watch separate TV Shows, use separate cars, eat from separate tables at different times, go to bed at different times, go to separate churches, love different leisure activities etc. There's no waiting for each other at all. This is how drifts keep growing and people end up not tolerating each other.

5. Married people should write blogs to help both the single and unmarried get life, relationships and marriage right. It is foolish to keep complaining yet never helping.

6. Family is important. It is the first place my faithfulness and service should be felt. If I'm only good to outsiders and not to members of my own family, I have missed the point of what life on earth is all about.

Family

Bonface Morris.