True Greatness

God made you great — incredibly great, far greater than you yet comprehend. I’m not saying this to pander to your self-esteem. I’m stating a fact — a fact that you, unless you’re the rare exception, vastly underappreciate because you’re so conditioned to value the wrong kind of greatness.

The greatness we’re conditioned to value is hardly great at all. In fact, much of it is smoke and mirrors. And when there is a trace of greatness, it is pathetically small.

Jesus came to deliver us from the blinding and impoverishing power of counterfeit or tiny greatness, and to restore to us both our true God-like greatness and our expansive capacities to enjoy it with God-like, gargantuan humility.

Towering Greatness

You barely have a clue what an absolutely astounding creature you are. That thing inside your skull allowing you to read and contemplate what I’m saying is the most complex, mysterious thing in the known material universe. Your brain, as defective as it might be, is simply breathtaking — more amazing than any star or galaxy.

Your capacities to reason abstractly; solve complex problems through deduction, induction, and invention; organize disorder; plan for the future; understand verbal, written, gestured, and tactile languages; appreciate the subtleties of irony; find discontinuity humorous; and enjoy the manifold beauties of harmony and dissonance, symmetry and asymmetry, color and pattern combinations are nothing short of marvelous genius.

Your capacities for visual, auditory, olfactory, somatosensory (touch, feel, pressure, warmth), and emotional memory are so wonderful we lack adequate superlatives.

And your emotional capacities to love and hate, to worship and despise, to cherish and grieve, to create and destroy, and for joy and sorrow are so far beyond any other known material species that to say, as a human, you are in a league of your own is an astronomical understatement.

You are truly God-like. You, just as you are, possess a greatness so rare and astonishing that could you see yourself for what you really are, most of your chronic battles with inadequacy would disappear.

Tiny Greatness

And yet it’s likely this description of your greatness, of which I’ve barely scratched the surface, does not impress you much. Why? Because you and I have been deceived about what greatness is. We’ve become conditioned to admire tiny greatness.

Tiny greatness is relative greatness — greatness defined and measured by comparison with other people. It’s not enough to possess God-given greatness; we must be greater than other great people or it doesn’t really matter.

Our sin nature is pathologically selfish and replaces God with the self as the standard of greatness measure. It calculates the value of everyone and everything else in relation to the self — how we rank in comparison and how they increase or decrease our perceived relative standing.

This is tiny greatness at best, and counterfeit greatness at worst, because it despises the immense, inherent, God-given worth of people and things and instead bases its evaluation on the minuscule differential range of talent and circumstance that result in public admiration, what we call "fame."

When we're enthralled with tiny greatness, we value or devalue ourselves (derive our self-esteem) based on where we think we rank in our preferred or accessible social context, and value or devalue others based on how they enhance or detract from our perceived rank, our relative greatness.

The great, tragic irony of a selfish preoccupation with tiny greatness is that truly great things appear small to us, priceless things appear worthless, magnificent things appear boring, and God appears of marginal importance.

A Portrait of Tiny Greatness

The Bible gives us a portrait of the blinding and impoverishing power of tiny greatness in Acts 8.

Simon was a local celebrity in his Samaritan town. A magician of sorts, he had mesmerized the locals with his arts, and they had given him a title: The Great Power of God (Acts 8:10). Simon loved his great reputation and fed off the public’s admiration.

Then one day Philip showed up in town. He preached the gospel and the Holy Spirit came with power, granting Philip signs and wonders beyond anything Simon had performed. Large numbers of Samaritans professed faith in Christ and were baptized, including Simon.

Soon Peter and John arrived and joined in to help with this revival. Simon watched in awe as the apostles prayed and Samaritans were filled with the Holy Spirit. The crowds got bigger. Everyone was talking about the great power of God.

But they weren’t talking about Simon anymore. His star had been eclipsed. And like many who have experienced the euphoric drug of other people’s admiration, Simon wanted that rush again.

So, at a discreet moment, he offered Peter and John a small fortune if they would deal him a fix of the tiny-greatness drug of the Holy Spirit. Peter, who knew from personal experience the great danger of worshiping the idol of tiny greatness (Luke 9:46–48; 22:24–27), mercifully spared Simon no words:

“May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” (Acts 8:20–23)

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CAN YOU MARRY YOU?

Writing this message from the depth of my heart, trusting the Holy Spirit to chisel us and polish us into the full stature of Christ.

I can never forget the day the Holy Spirit asked me that question. It was after my graduation from the University. I was single. I mean not even in any relationship at the time.

I daily bombarded the heavens with my cry for marital settlement.

One day, I heard in my spirit *Esther can you marry you?*
I have never heard nor read anything like that before.

*Can you marry you?*

I just laughed at my thoughts.

After reflecting for a short while I got the understanding.

In simpler form, it means *If you are a man, Can you marry a typical woman like yourself? Are you marriageable?
Wow! That took me a lot of time to reflect on.

I got the message the Holy Spirit was trying to communicate to me.

With great joy, I listed out all the wonderful things about my personality and character.
At the end I smiled, feeling very beautiful.

*Look beyond your good sides* I was prompted.

My mood changed immediately.
Most of us hate to give our dark side some attention.

I noted my bad attitudes...
I do yell at my siblings when I am angry, which I don't do to annoying-outsiders,
I can be full of my ways sometimes,
I am stubborn. I will do what I choose to do when I feel like it.

This is the part of me I never took to heart until that day.

"Imagine you get married to someone who yell at you when he's angry, he doesn't listen to your advice and very stubborn husband; how would your marriage turn out"

"It won't work" I admitted.

That was how I started learning not to yell at people who infuriates me. I just take a walk away or pray for self-control under my breath. Sometimes I cried instead of shouting at someone who yell at me especially elderly people.

While preparing for my Youth service, my mentor Pastor Muyiwa Olufemi had a conversation with me. After celebrating all my good qualities, he said;
"...You are a strong willed person. This trait is a strength and could be a weakness. I advise you to work on it. This trait is not totally bad if only you don't allow the negative side of it take you over..."

It hurt me deeply.

But I wasn't surprised.

Being a strong-willed person helped me overcome peer-pressure while growing up. It helped me to stand through thorns without compromising my values. It helped me fit into the position my father"s demise left for me to assume.

Being the first born, my mom treats me like her little sister and partner. She groomed me to lead, tutor and be a disciplinarian for my siblings. Being a strong-willed person was a strength to me. I could exert my authority.
I am a very determined and focused woman. Distractions don't appeal to me.

The bad sad of this strength is what I call *unbending* *unyielding*

I kept praying that the Lord should break me and mould me.

Looking back now, I can remember all the stubborn set of people God threw my way to *bend* me.

I dislike them. I refused to bend to the stubbornness in them. I acted like I am up to the task till someone bows eventually.

When they prove stubborn with me, I shut down without giving in.

I didn't understand the workings of the Holy Spirit in me on time until later.

During my youth Service, the Lord made me go through some unpalatable circumstances. I was cheated, humiliated, yet the Holy Spirit told me to either *endure by keeping quiet or make peace even when I am not at fault*

That was hard!

Thank God for that season of moulding.

Fast forward to few Months into my courtship, I and my husband had a misunderstanding on the phone. I was angry and yelled at him on the phone telling him not to call my phone.

He called me the next day, I ignored.
The second day, I refused to pick.
The third day, I was expecting his calls but he stopped calling.

I got troubled in my heart. Chai!
I have overstepped my boundary.
I have over-reacted.
The right thing would have been for me to call him but I couldn't.
I was ashamed of myself. How could I overreact like that! I thought I am MADE!
I kept checking my phone at short intervals hoping he would call.
I got tired. Yet I didn't want to be the one calling him to make peace.
I thought this stubbornness is done with. I reasoned and turned sober.
In the evening he called me and we settled.
I was so happy yet I felt very bad and angry with myself. What exactly is that *thing* in me that makes me unyielding?
My husband was more of disappointed in me than annoyed.
"Unbending and unyielding is a sign of UNBROKENNESS" He said
It was the first and the last during our courtship.

EveryOne Needs Somebody

Everyone needs Somebody

Man (male and female inclusive) was created to be a social being. That is, he has the ability to be interactive with his environment and the people in it. It was the resultant effect of Adam’s loneliness and need for a companion that brought about the need for a companion and the social behavior of man.

No man in life has ever achieved anything independently without the need or input of other people no matter the knowledge of that person. No general can single-handedly go to war without the support of other soldiers. There can’t be a government without the people and so on. So the existence of one person is needful for the companionship of the other person.

 No matter how successful a person thinks that he or she has attained in life and needs no one’s contribution, such a one is heading for doom’s day. Success without a successor as it is been said amounts to total failure,  therefore everyone needs somebody.

Don’t get mad at people when they tell you they feel so lonely and depressed, not really their fault because it’s just an expression of that social being in them seeking for attention, seeking for a companion to fill the gap that has engulfed such a one.

Life has lots of pains and frustration, filled with failures and disappointments and most times requires the companionship of a fellow to help one get out of frustration.

It’s in an effort for a man to socialize and deal with loneliness that brought about the invention of social media. A platform where people can interact with each other, get to meet new people, let go unprofitable companionship and look for people who can really fill that loneliness in them. If you get to ask some people what their hobbies are, you get to see kinds of stuff like meeting new friends, traveling, chatting and a whole lot more. In a way, it could be seen as hubbies but in its real sense it’s sense, it’s just an expression of the social need of man and the ways to fill that vacuum.

Therefore, we can strongly agree that each one of us needs a person who can listen, give attention and really wants to know at each point in time how we are feeling. No man is an island

People complain that attention is not given to them or that they are been neglected

At some point in time, we are on the verge of giving up on life, don’t give up my friend, a companion is all you need to sparkle up the greatness in you.

It may look as though, life and everyone is against you. It could be at times frustrating that there is no one to speak to his or her hearing. At times, you are so desperate to speak to someone about your problems, you just needed the heart to hear you out of your pains and probably tell you

Everyone needs a shoulder to lean on.
Everyone needs a heart that could comprehend his or her torments.
Everyone needs a listening ear that can hear him or her out of their life’s issues.
Try as much as possible to be that individual whom, if individuals share their torments with you, they get calmed and find reasons to be alive!
Be that shoulder that individuals can incline toward and discover trust.
Be that listening ear that is prepared to listen to individuals of their disappointments.
Be that heart that can be effortlessly broken at the plight of individuals. 

Learn to be concerned about others and not been so concerned about yourself alone

Poverty Is Not Just About Money

poverty is not just about cash. Oxford University in Britain says destitution additionally implies not having enough sustenance, training, social insurance and haven.

Recently, Oxford University discharged its most recent measure of destitution. It is known as the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI. Scientists assembled data from 108 nations, where 78 percent of the total populace lives. Oxford says in regards to 1.6 billion of those individuals are what it calls "multi-dimensionally poor." It says most live in country ranges.

Sabina Alkire is the leader of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. She portrays multidimensional destitution.

"I mean a man who has distinctive things turning out badly in the meantime. They won't not have numerous advantages and they may have hunger. What's more, they won't not have over five years of tutoring. In this way, a few things are turning out badly in their life in the meantime. That is being multi-dimensionally poor. It's not only one."

The MPI found that in almost 50 creating nations, half of the needy individuals ought to be called "down and out" - as it were, having an outrageous absence of fundamental expectations for everyday comforts.

Poverty Is A Sickness, Deal With It

Poverty is a sickness, deal with it

Poverty is defined as the general state of scarcity or the state in which one lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money in his or her possession. It is a concept which cuts across many areas of life, which includes social, economic, spiritual and political elements

The lack of money seems to be more source of evil in our society than the love of money today. People go into so much evil because of the lack of money but no evil is justifiable for going into because of the lack of money.

Indeed, I can say clearly that poverty is a sickness that has crippled many dreams and visions, and only a few are determined to come out of that sickness called poverty.

Poverty has killed many dreams, aspirations and until you treat poverty as a sickness and handle it the way you handle Malaria, you are entitled to remain poverty-ridden and your life a good definition of what poverty is.

That you were born poor is not a license to continue in poverty and hand over poverty to the generation coming after you. It is not a crime to be born poor but it becomes an evil thing when one decides to live poor and die poor.

That you were born without a silver spoon does not mean you cannot get the golden spoon for your children and generations unborn.

Holiness + Poverty = Lazarus kind of life although going to heaven

Also

Holiness + True Riches= Isaac kind of life that was richer than a nation yet was going to heaven too like Lazarus the beggar.

Persistence And Determination

This is a real life story of engineer John Roebling building the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, USA back in 1870. The bridge was completed in 24th May, 1883, after 13 years.
In 1870, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea to build a spectacular bridge connecting New York with the Long Island. However bridge building experts throughout the world thought that this was an impossible feat and told Roebling to forget the idea. It just could not be done. It was not practical. It had never been done before.
Roebling could not ignore the vision he had in his mind of this bridge. He thought about it all the time and he knew deep in his heart that it could be done. He just had to share the dream with someone else. After much discussion and persuasion he managed to convince his son Washington, an up and coming engineer, that the bridge in fact could be built.
Working together for the first time, the father and son developed concepts of how it could be accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With great excitement and inspiration, and the headiness of a wild challenge before them, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.
The project started well, but when it was only a few months underway a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling. Washington was also injured and left with a certain amount of brain damage, which resulted in him not being able to talk or walk.
“We told them so.” “Crazy men and their crazy dreams.” “It’s foolish to chase wild visions.”
Everyone had a negative comment to make and felt that the project should be scrapped since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built.
In spite of his handicap Washington was never discouraged and still had a burning desire to complete the bridge and his mind was still as sharp as ever. He tried to inspire and pass on his enthusiasm to some of his friends, but they were too daunted by the task.
As he lay on his bed in his hospital room, with the sunlight streaming through the windows, a gentle breeze blew the flimsy white curtains apart and he was able to see the sky and the tops of the trees outside for just a moment.
It seemed that there was a message for him not to give up. Suddenly an idea hit him. All he could do was move one finger and he decided to make the best use of it. By moving this, he slowly developed a code of communication with his wife.
He touched his wife’s arm with that finger, indicating to her that he wanted her to call the engineers again. Then he used the same method of tapping her arm to tell the engineers what to do. It seemed foolish but the project was under way again.
For 13 years Washington tapped out his instructions with his finger on his wife’s arm, until the bridge was finally completed. Today the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory as a tribute to the triumph of one man’s indomitable spirit and his determination not to be defeated by circumstances. It is also a tribute to the engineers and their team work, and to their faith in a man who was considered mad by half the world. It stands too as a tangible monument to the love and devotion of his wife who for 13 long years patiently decoded the messages of her husband and told the engineers what to do.
Perhaps this is one of the best examples of a never-say-die attitude that overcomes a terrible physical handicap and achieves an impossible goal.
Often when we face obstacles in our day-to-day life, our hurdles seem very small in comparison to what many others have to face. The Brooklyn Bridge shows us that dreams that seem impossible can be realised with determination and persistence, no matter what the odds are.

Believe In Yourself

There may be days when you get up in the morning and things aren’t the way you had hoped they would be.
That’s when you have to tell yourself that things will get better. There are times when people disappoint you and let you down.
But those are the times when you must remind yourself to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your life focused on believing in yourself.
There will be challenges to face and changes to make in your life, and it is up to you to accept them.
Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you. It may not be easy at times, but in those times of struggle you will find a stronger sense of who you are.
So when the days come that are filled with frustration and unexpected responsibilities, remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be.
Because the challenges and changes will only help you to find the goals that you know are meant to come true for you.

BE ENTHUSISTIC

Not every person has enthusiasm. Not every person is moved sincerely by what they do. What's more, that is to a great degree deplorable. Be that as it may, luckily, you dislike every other person.

The triumphant associations in each industry are loaded with energetic, vocal, dynamic individuals (likewise, we have a ton of fun doing what we do). To us, it isn't even truly "work" as in it streams normally and feels more like an imaginative opportunity.

I believe that genuinely energetic individuals are not comprehended by a great part of the world. I'll give you one illustration: I don't stare at the television any longer. I tell individuals this, and it feels like a considerable lot of them rationally record me in a class of being irregular or socially degenerate. A great many people can't understand the world without TV.

This is shocking, and by and large pitiful. We are at such a staggering defining moment in the public eye, and the world is improving because of individuals with enthusiasm.
Be passionate about what you do if its right and don't be intimidated by what others are doing, only strive to be the best that you can be.
Aim for the top and work towards it. Others may misunderstand you but go on with your passion and what gives you joy but only ensure that it is something that is right

YOU CAN FAIL BUT DONT REMAIN A FAILURE