As I've shared before, I've always wanted to be in ministry, and always felt that God has great plans for me, that I will be leading my own ministry, with my own school and orphanage, and shelter.. and it would be BIG. And in the process of being prepared and trained by God, I had thought that I was in my current, relatively small ministry for that very purpose: to be trained.
Now I don't deny that I'm here to be trained, and that God still has great plans for me, but I have come to recognise that some of these thoughts had been in vain and had sought for my own glorification than God. And these delusions of grandeur, I had been walking on an arrogant path. But with much praise to God, I have gotten off of that high horse. As unbeknown to me, this journey of training and pruning that I took this year, started in August 2016, and now almost at its end in June 2017, had been something that God had seriously planned for me. He knew what I needed, and He gave it to me. One would think that's amazing, and it absolutely was, but it was some serious hard work as well as a lot of humbling.
When I started, I felt close to God, I felt privileged, I felt that I was talented and of good character, and boy, was I wrong! In the months to follow, God showed me first my arrogance, then my lack of relationship with Him, then my lack of good character and commitment, and it is all true, and as I walked this painful walk of realisation, I managed to stay on the path from knowing very clearly that this was what God had in mind for me, and I persevered.. to the point of giving up several times, but I did not. I relied on my proof that God had spoken to me audibly about this job, and when it became too hard to just hang onto that, I relied on my desire to grow out of my poor character, and when that wasn't enough, I relied on my knowledge that it will not get easier even if I moved onto the next opportunity. And finally, these past few months, with uncertainty in my future as I am not sure if my contract will be renewed or not, but still desiring to stay.. I relied on the one most important and basic thing that I learnt while serving here, and that is: to choose to do right.
The fact that there may be no tangible reward, that I may not be able to continue, and even though God has already shown me the next phase, I needed to floor the gas in order to give God my best, and to keep my personal growth on the verge. And so, I chose to be committed because I can. I chose to overcome stress by knowing that I can do all things through Christ. I chose to have joy in my overly hectic life because I have the fruits of the Spirit. I no longer sought for a reason or to validate what I was feeling, but rather, made the choice to be. And when everything became a choice, my life sprung to life. I was committed because I chose to be committed. I was full of joy because I chose to be full of joy. I was diligent, faithful, meek, good, loving, peaceful, abundant.. because I made the choice to believe the Word more than what I was experiencing in the natural.
And so now.. I don't know what comes next, but I do know, I have grown closer to be the man that God made me to be, and I know I have much power in my faith and my choices, and that it really doesn't matter to me whether I lead a ministry or not, whether I am known or not, whether I am part of a big ministry or a small one. God is apparent in my life because of the choices that I make, not where I'm situated, or who the world knows me as. So I'm perfectly happy working and staying unknown for the rest of my life, if it brings me even closer to God, and if I can grow as much as I have grown thus far. However, I do believe growth is exponential, especially character growth, good character upgrades every good gift.
Be blessed, my friends. Remember, you can choose to be more than what this world is willing to give, because the King of this world has already given to you in all abundance in life, it just depends on how much of the cookie you have the courage to receive and how much faith you have to believe it.
