If you do the same thing the same way and expect different results, that is classed as insanity. As you grow over the years, having learnt some lessons sometimes the hard/very way, you decide to do things differently next time, or you apply the principles you have learnt to a new situation. Many people say they don’t have regrets for me this is not true.
I have regrets and that is ok. I regret some of the decisions I have made in all areas of my life: spiritual, friendships, dating, work, financial, and wish I knew better at the time. Now that I know better the lesson is sometimes so obvious, but it wasn’t then. I can encourage and challenge myself to do better, knowing what the outcome would be if I made the wrong choice. One thing I know is that all the mistakes we have made are never in vain and indeed God uses all things for our good. I love that because I can live in that place as opposed to living in regret. Even our mistakes have a purpose and best of all as i heard from a sermon, "you are not your mistakes". Your identity is never in your mistakes. You are a child of God made in his image and that is your identity that no one and nothing can ever take away from you. Praise God!
One way I can summarise some of the many lessons I have learnt is by a video I saw on social media. A black man was at a stadium watching a game and there was a white woman shouting at him endlessly and he did not respond to her at all. He was also standing and continued watching the game as she shouted at him up close and in his private space. The clip was short and didn’t explain why this lady was shouting. One thing I love about social media is the comments section. That’s the real social media. One of the comments said, “if God will fight my battles was a person.” I loved it and I thought to myself that is the type of guy, I'd want to marry.
Physically like this man, emotionally and spiritually there is always a battle we are facing. It is so easy; I mean very easy to take matters into your own hands and “get your way”. The easiest ways are often the wrong ways, and you end up regretting it or for those who don’t have regrets, they still have to face the consequences of their actions in some way. We have two options during those battles we face. Fight them ourselves or leave God to fight them for us.
I saw that clip not too long after I was in a situation that got the better of me because I reacted. I regret that and I am still living through the consequence today. I decided I need to do things different, and this clip and that caption were speaking exactly what I needed to do in future. Be still and Let God fight my battles. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" He is well able to fight my battles and make me victorious. On top of that He is well able to give me the wisdom, patience, strength, self-control, his joy, etc as he executes his divine strategic plan.
Another clip/meme I love seeing on social media is one about noisy neighbours who live above you. Clip link below. There are so many of them and I just saw one 2 weeks ago and I was on the floor because all of it was the truth. Where I live, most neighbours that have moved in to the flat above me have always been noisy, whether its music, tv, kids jumping and the painful and disturbing one was procreative noises that I was subjected to every weekend for a long period.
Later on when I saw a baby I didn’t know they had had, I thought my goodness even the screams of a baby I never heard, but them, I heard. 3 years ago, we had the worst kind of noise from a new neighbour that led me to get the noise team involved because it was too much. I got to know the procedure for these things. Eventually after a total of 4 years of their nuisance they moved and the ones who came after were one of the best. Hardly any noise. Praise God! Then the current one moved in. Lord have mercy, here we go again.
The first time I spoke to her, she apologised, and took action. The next time she reduced the noise, then soon after went back to the noise. In the spirit of my new motto of God fighting my battles, I decided I wasn’t going to go up again. There was something she said the second time I went up there that led me to believe that next time, there was potential for the conversation to go left. So that and the fact she didn’t act led me to believe I needed to do something different when the next occasion arose. I escalated the issue to the noise team, they came and did their thing and after they left, the music reduced then again was increased.
I prayed about it and said “Lord you see your child, she has played music 12 hours of the day, she’s been told to consider the rest, she hasn’t. Me I’m not going up there, I’m not banging on the ceiling (my ceiling has holes from the mop I used during the incidences of the loud babymakers), I’m not doing anything, this is now your battle”.
Eventually the noise stopped, and I slept after 1 am. Early in the morning, I heard a noise at the door. It sounded like a letter being dropped through the letter box and I knew it was internal and not the post man. I am such a light sleeper I can hear things even with my sleep aid fan playing in the background. Usually when the post man comes the main door downstairs makes a noise when its opened. I didn’t hear that this time, so I knew it wasn’t him. When I went to the door I didn’t see any letter on the floor. I decided to look through the peep hole. It was the neighbour!
This was so interesting because before all this happened, I was sort of having a rehearsal speech in my head of what I would say to her if she ever decided to have a conversation about the situation. I do such rehearsals of potential/hypothetical situations a lot. I think it helps me get closure in the situation without the person being present and that is why I believe you can give yourself closure. Anyway back to the story, now here she was.
My head went into “ from the makers of previous regrettable choices and mistakes” and I “saw” what could possibly happen if I opened the door. May be a nice conversation initially that then goes left. From my lessons and where I am now, I don’t have time to that. Some people may give people the benefit of the doubt, ya, I don’t know about that. I don’t trust people till I trust people. I also trust and observe patterns (very hard life lessons), I hadn’t seen any strong positive patterns here. I asked God what I should do. I went to peep at the door and she had gone.
I started thinking about it and had different thoughts about it, like why didn’t she come last night when the noise team were present. I’ve watched neighbours from hell on tv and may be my mind just goes into overdrive thinking such things won’t go well and if any convo is to be had, it would be better with the noise team present as witnesses. I told God "I’m still leaving it in your hands, the battle is not mine and I am not allowing a situation for anything negative to happen. Don’t get me wrong, I am up for difficult conversations that try to find resolve in a situation. In fact, I love that because you always discover your assumptions were mostly wrong and the truth always comes out.
What I don't want is a situation where there is shouting, no one is really listening and at the end your BP is high, and you are all worked up. No sir! I want to keep my cortisol levels down; I don’t need more health issues. Besides, how do you shine your light for the King of Kings, when you’re caught up in strife. I proceeded to get myself ready for church. When I came back, I find a little gift bag by the door. I had a feeling it was from the neighbour. When I checked it was.
She wrote a note saying she felt we had got off to a wrong start. She apologised and showed consideration that the noise would be an inconvenience. She explained her situation for me to understand perhaps the background of the noise, which was indeed helpful to know. She ended the letter by saying she hoped we could work out something.
Even when I was doing the rehearsal in my head of the hypothetical conversation I would have with her, I never thought it would actually happen. When she knocked at the door, I thought maybe she wanted to apologise but I was leaning more that it wasn’t going to be a positive conversation. Getting the letter together with the gift was very much something I never expected. Look at God!
For the past few months, he has been doing such unexpected good things for me. Good things that I believe he knows I need and also to show me he is listening and, in this scenario, that indeed he will fight my battles if I let him and I will get what I want. I get to smile first of all that God has done it again, I get to live in peace, I get to be at rest in my soul or spirit as opposed to be in conflict because my beliefs and deeds are working together unlike a parallelogram, or previous mistakes where they've been completely parallel and don’t meet. The latter I don’t want for myself. As hard as it is in this raggedy world, I want to live a life that is in obedience to what God wants for me, its always better. I've tried my own way and that's where I've got the very hard lessons from. I read a book yesterday that says you show love for God when you are living in obedience to him. I knew obedience is key but I didn’t see it that way or know that “obedience is the outward expression of your love for God” oowi!
I have work to do and the best part about this is even though obedience and trust in God is not in our first nature, he is right there again to help us fight this battle. The battle of succumbing to our selfish needs, the battle of not trusting him because we have trust issues, the battle of wanting to conform with what the world says so we can fit in “just do you boo, do you”, “there’s nothing wrong with doing that”,” it’s not harmful”, "just test drive it girl", the battle of not trusting that when God asks us to do or not do something he is coming from a place of “I have plans for good and not for evil”, the battle of lack of patience, the battle of lack of self-control, the battle of strife, the battle of not getting to know him because “these church folk are hypocrites, I’m not going to church” (yes we are, Lord have mercy on us but continue reading your Bible please, yes I am begging you to read your Bible daily).
The battle of not having a relationship with him when that is the key to getting everything you want as the Excellent Book says “ Delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart”, the battle of blaming God when things are forever going wrong yet we haven’t delighted in him and that is why we are not getting the desires of our heart, the battle of flat out refusing to believe in him and instead of putting him first, put either ourselves and/or the idols of our lives ( securing the bag, the hustle, tenders, generational wealth, search for a significant other, a Y.O.L.O kind of social life, social media, anything but this One and Only Living Sovereign God. The list is endless but as always there is hope for us all. Amen!
If God can fight for me, in a situation that in the grand scheme of things, is a measly situation of me and my neighbour why won’t he fight for you those battles that no one even knows about, those battles that you are struggling with in your inner core, those struggles that you have tried everything you can and haven’t seen victory in, internally or externally. PS: sometimes victory doesn’t “look like” you are getting out of the situation but looks and feels like internal peace that someone looking in just sees you are thriving and flourishing and are astounded when they hear what you are going through i.e., “you don’t look like what you’re going through” (Look out for my testimony on next weekend’s edition).
Good example in our world was the late Chadwick Boseman. He played the role of Black panther and others when battling Cancer. Won’t God do it! Yes, he died and seemingly appeared to “lose” the cancer battle BUT! because of his faith, we know when Jesus comes, he will be in that group of the first to rise up and meet Jesus in the clouds. Glory to God! So, he has not lost anything but gained eternal life. If we lose that, for sure that is when we have lost the battle. And even this, Jesus has made it so possible to win. He says Only Believe and right there you have won not just for now in the land of the living, but for eternity. These things we want to win down here, will rot, be stolen or we will leave behind when we die, for the uncouth relatives to fight over. Those things therefore are not a win in the grand scheme of things.
So, why won’t God fight and win for you when that is just how he does boo! Why won’t he give you the desires of your heart when his whole set up is victory just for you and especially for you. “The only thing God can’t do is fail” I heard that powerful and truthful statement from a sermon. Take the first step and give him permission to fight All your battles (small, measly, big, gigantic, temporary, long- term, and especially the impossible ones) and see yourself win, win, win, win! In Jesus name.
Related verses:
Psalms 37:4
Psalm 1:1-6
Psalm 119:33-40
Psalm 16:8
Psalm 34:4
Psalm 138:3
Jeremiah 31:3
Nehemiah 8:10
Exodus 33:14
1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18
Matthew 6:25-34
Next post: 19/3/2023
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Clip link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYmCAh7w/
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