TIME & CHANCE

Yesterday morning, after writing my diary entries, I went through the old blogs and felt I wasn’t getting as much visitors, comments and encouragement as I would have loved to. I started getting worked up and then all sorts of thoughts started flying through my head….maybe my diary is boring, maybe I don’t really have something worth telling the world, maybe I wasn’t good enough as I imagined… Then again I thought it could be that I wasn’t spreading the word fast enough, I wasn’t telling enough people… Then I started thinking, ok, maybe I should start forwarding the link to everyone on my address book (I think I already did that!) and then maybe I should post the link DAILY on Facebook, maybe I should join other networking sites, maybe I should make announcements in my church, in my office, everywhere. Trust me, I thought of all sorts!

Just before I clicked send on the post I forwarded to friends yesterday, I heard the Holy Spirit tell me “Do not send your posts to anyone anymore. I will bring the people to whom the messages are meant for to the site myself.” Wow! With all the maybes that were going through my head at that point, this was the last thing I wanted to hear God say to me. How was He planning to send the people to the site? If they didn’t know about the blog how were they going to discover it and read it? Who were these people He was talking about anyway? Wasn’t it going to be foolishness on my part to put in all this effort and not advertise the blog? I argued with Him, I said “God, I have to advertise the blog now? I want to minister to as many people as possible. I want to reach the ends of the earth with the message of Christ in the best way I know how…” blah, blah, blah. Well He stood His ground and said nothing more after that (as usual). In my stubbornness, I told Him “Ok, one more time won’t hurt now will it?” Afterwards, I just clicked send!!

How many times have we taken up a task, started a job, a business, that seemed bigger than us and we feel the urgent need to have the right connections, have enough money, have the right skills and talents, sell ourselves well, make that presentation the best, have that unique brand? Did I hear you say so many times? Well, the truth is…It’s not by power, it’s not by might but by the Spirit and special grace of God. He is the one who makes one person prosper and the other fail. No matter how hard we try, how much effort we put into our daily tasks, no matter how many people we know, how well read and intelligent we are, after all is said and done, it’s the Lord Most High who decides our fate. Please take a minute to read Rom 9: 18-21. Each time I read this passage I realize more that the choice is not mine but God’s. My future is in His hands. I can write all I want, sing all I can, use all the talents I have, market and brand my products all I can, study all I can…hmmm at the end of the day, He alone will decide if I will succeed in my cause or not.

The wisest and richest man on earth admitted that “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant, or favour to the learned; but TIME AND CHANCE HAPPEN TO THEM ALL.” So my advice to myself (and to you of course) is, “whatever my hands find to do, I’m going to do it with all my heart and just surrender the success or failure of it to God the author and the finisher of my faith.”

XOXO…