THE POWER of a little

As you may or may not have noticed, I haven’t posted in a while. To keep it very real, I honestly felt like I couldn’t. I felt as though I was unqualified to do so. How can I be advising others when I haven’t got my life together? This self-doubt mentally paralysed me. Until I realised the power of a little. If we keep waiting until were “perfect” or at that stage where everything feels 100% right, we will never achieve anything.

A common misconception is that before we can embark on something new we must have everything we need. But that’s just not the case. To get anywhere requires a journey and that journey starts with a step. Along that journey is where we acquire what we need on the way.

Everything that grows starts with a seed. Never judge a seed by its size. You don’t always see the potential that in the seed you are carrying, but don’t let self-doubt stop you from sowing it anyway.

Don’t let self-doubt be a barrier, let it be a reminder that you need God.

 When Moses asked God, “what makes me good enough?” God’s reply was “I will be with you” (Exodus 3).

Our strength is not in our ability but in the one who has sent us.

We cannot allow our perceived limitations stop us from even trying to get more out of this life. You already know the outcome of not believing so why not give believing a try?I’m the type of person who can be so scared of making the wrong move that I find it easier to not make any at all. And I’m sure I am not the only one.

But it’s time to get rid of the pressure of trying to design your life, when God has already designed one for you.

Your job isn’t to create your own purpose but to allow God to lead you to the one he has created.

Unlike us, he doesn’t make mistakes.

 So if things aren’t going the way you’ve planned maybe to its time to ask God what he has planned. God does not expect us to do extraordinary things on our own that would defeat the purpose of needing him.

Our big dreams can be overwhelming and appear impossible. So instead of focusing on the big dream, lets focus on having a little courage to make that first step, a little faith (approximately the size of a mustard seed) in God, and a little belief that our best is good enough because our strength lies in God.

Is there something you wanted to do but felt unqualified to be doing? Let’s get out of the “I only have” mentality and start something great today!

With love always,

Temi xx

THE SELF LOVE DECISION – WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANS

 

This year I decided to go on a self-love journey. I wanted to really love myself finally. 

To want to love yourself and to actually love yourself are two different things, I always had the intent but didn’t really know how to execute it.

After praying to God about this one day I stood in front of the mirror – like okay God! Time to love myself! any minute now! As you can imagine I didn’t feel any different. So I knew something was wrong.

So I decided to change tactics. I read the famous Corinthians 13 and watched a few sermons. Which was when I had realised I had got it all wrong. I had completely miss understood what love was. I had reduced love to just an emotion, a tingling feeling in my body. For my whole life I had been waiting for an feeling of love. Not realising that love is way more than that.

Love is a conscious decision/demonstration, where conscious actions are made. To reduce love to just a feeling would be to massively underestimate its power, purpose and capability. It would reduce it to a temporary thing.

You can literally decide to love yourself. All this time I had been waiting for an emotion without realising that it was my actions towards myself that needed to change.

Making the decision to love yourself is easy, its the living in that decison that takes work.

Once you make that decision you need to:

1. Protect that decision: Maybe there are things you need to stop doing that make you lose confidence in that decision (for example social media) or things you need to start doing that grow your confidence in that decision. 
2. Trust that decision: Know that the love you are giving you are giving yourself isn’t what you feel at that time but what you know. 
3. Hope in that decision: Have hope that the decision you’ve made to love yourself will change your negative perspective of life to positive.
4. Persevere in that decision: In a world that tells you to compare yourself to others and makes you feel inadequate, you have to persevere and go against the norm in the decision you’ve made to know that you are good enough.

Once you fully master how to show love to yourself, you will be able to successfully reciprocate this unto other people.

I would encourage you to read 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 make notes on how you can demonstrate love to God and to yourself. Also I have attached this video by transformation church that really helped me understand these concepts too!

With love always,

Temi xx

 

 

HAVE YOU LEARNT YOUR LESSON?

Do you ever feel like sometimes life is just passing you by? Like everyone around you is moving forward, but your life is at a standstill? You know you could be better, you could do better, but it feels as though you keep hitting the same walls but in different ways?

What God made me to realise is that we are at fault and are preventing our own growth. We are consumed by the distractions of life that we don’t acknowledge the destructive behaviours that our holding us back.

The same problem will keep reoccurring in different ways until the lesson is learnt. In order for that lesson to be learnt something about your behaviour must change. Majority of us can acknowledge when we have made a mistake but how many of us can say we have actually made changes to our behaviour to prevent it from happening again?

GROWTH IS NOT KNOWING BETTER BUT DOING BETTER.

 We need to take the time to evaluate ourselves and the habits that may be preventing you from moving forward. God will not take you to the next level if you are not ready. Sometimes we are so disconnected from life spiritually that we don’t even realise that we have been in the same spot for too long.

Time is the most precious thing on this Earth. It cannot be duplicated, bought or sold. It is more valuable than money. So how are you using your time? Take a look at how you’ve spent your day for example. Have you used it to invest in yourself? Or have you spent it all on social media investing in others? As much as God is in control, we need to take responsibility for our own growth.

We need to be evolving all the time to keep moving to the next level. We need to constantly be evaluating our behaviours to see if they are preventing or promoting growth. For example, over the last two weeks I decided to dedicate 30mins each morning to reading. I realised that if I can spend 1 hour watching Love and Hip Hop that is adding nothing to my life and possibly even reducing my IQ, I can spend 30minutes reading something to impact my life positively.

If you look back over your life, and your challenges and bad experiences have not changed you in a positive way, then you run the risk of experiencing them again until something about you has changed.

If we do not engage with the lessons God is trying to teach us through the challenges of our lives, then we will never move forward.

There is so much we can do to be better yet we spend so much time on things that aren’t helping us to be better. Do not underestimate the power of making small changes each day. Every investment you make in yourself is never wasted.

As always, with love,

Temi xx

YOU ARE VALUABLE

To be valuable:

To have qualities worthy of respect, admiration, or esteem.

When you are valuable:

-Many see, but cannot attain;

– Some go above their means to attain;

– Only few can attain.

Many see, but cannot attain: When you have value you will not be attainable to everyone. When I was younger I used to quantify my worth by how much attention I got. But what I failed to realise is that when you are of high value, you become intimidating and not everyone has access to you. Attention is not a reflection of your worth. God is not going to reveal how valuable you are to everyone, so do not devalue yourself in order to become attainable to the masses.

Some go above their means to attain: These are probably the most dangerous ones. They know they do not deserve you, but when you do not know your worth they are able to get what they do not deserve. They may present themselves as worthy, but this image/lifestyle that they cannot sustain. This becomes apparent with time. Not everyone that gives you attention or shows interest deserves you.

Only a few can attain: To be able differentiate between these and the ones that go above their means takes patience and discernment from God. These people see your true worth and never make you feel less than that. They are not intimidated by your greatness but inspired by it.

You have to be careful of who you give yourself to. No matter how good their intentions may seem, not everyone deserves to know every part of you. You do not want to be left feeling robbed because you did not know your value.

This is not just focusing on relationships, but this can be applied to anything you have to offer. For example your craft, or your time etc. Don’t let people take advantage. Humans are opportunists. But think about it, if you could get something good for cheaper than it should be, why wouldn’t you?

One of the most important relationships you will ever have is the one you have with yourself however this is one of the most neglected. I urge you to take the time necessary to really begin to appreciate yourself and understand that you are valuable.

Know that you are beautiful in spite of what the world says.

Know that you are wonderfully and fearfully made.

Know that God has said that you are valuable, it is up to you whether you choose to accept it.

THE PURPOSE BEHIND YOUR PERSONALITY

At my local connect group (a meeting with my church family) we started talking about what are some things that we may miss in ourselves that others may see. It was a beautiful experience that made me realise how subtle the holy spirit can work in us. Recently I have been going through a phase where I had begun to question Gods presence in my life and compare myself to those who had a greater spiritual experiences such as speaking in tongues.

But at connect I realised God likes to work subtly sometimes. Just because you’re not casting out demons, speaking in tongues or walking on water does not mean God is not using you. God is still working through you. There is a purpose to our personality that God wants to use.

It could be as subtle as your gentle spirit, your hospitality, your strength that helped you overcome a struggle.

Often, we are too busy paying to attention to other people looking after their gardens that we don’t notice the seed God has placed in our hands. We are always looking for more rather than appreciating what God has already given us.

We need to trust our walk with God and be more sensitive to our environment and even our personality traits. Reflect on the reasons why you went through what you did how this made you as a person, look at what you are passionate about. These are all things that others could learn from.

We forget that God can use even our personality to change people’s life. Someone needs what you have to offer. For example, your caring nature may seem insignificant to you but it’s that same nature that could potentially be a light in someone’s life who really needs it.

It can be hard trying to discover our purpose, as some are not as easy to identify as others. But maybe it’s not as hard as we think it is. It might be as simple as using what comes so naturally to us – being ourselves to be a blessing onto others.

Jenny Giplin said “we underestimate the uniqueness of our calling” Not only this, I think we underestimate how and why God made us the way we are and how necessary it is for our purpose. There are certain people that you are meant to influence purely based on your nature that God is only giving you access to.

Embrace every part of you the parts your proud of and the parts you’re not so proud of. Being yourself is so important. It is that authenticity that God wants to use to lead people back to him. Use the little you think God has given you to impact someone’s life and see where it takes you.

With love,

Temi xx

What Does it Mean To Be Enough?

Recently I’ve been struggling with being enough. Feeling as though I’m not pretty enough to not wear make-up, not smart enough and feeling like I have not lost enough weight. These thoughts began to consume me and take over. It got me thinking, what is this ‘enough’ that I am actually trying to get to? What does it actually mean to be enough? What will it feel like to actually get to enough? I remember saying to myself that once I lost 50 pounds I would start to see myself differently and feel happy within myself. But once I got there and the way I saw myself had not changed it began to make me question aiming to be enough. Does ‘enough’ actually exisit? Is there a stage in life where I would be completely happy and feel as though nothing needs improvement?

ENOUGH:

• As much or as many required
• To the required degree or extent

Feeling like you are not enough causes you to look outside for help to increase your value, however , this gives a false sense of accomplishment as in reality it is actually decreasing our value. For example, I began to use make-up as a mask to hide behind, thinking that it was making me better and increasing my worth when it was actually making me feel worse.

When in the mind-set of trying to be enough it means we are susceptible to seeking validation from others. We will always use the opinion of others to validate ourselves to feel enough. So maybe one day we do feel enough we can quickly be disheartened by others to feel as though we are not enough. As “enough” is not a fixed value. It is subject to change. It is based on emotions not facts and its relative. So to base our worth on ‘enough’ is risky as anything emotion based is unreliable.

So maybe we need to change our approach to the way we think. Centring our lives around chasing ‘enough’ will always leave us feeling inadequate as we are measuring ourselves up against a standard that doesn’t even exist. For example,saying: “I’m not pretty enough.” For you to have decided this,  means that you have used a standard to measure yourself up against. But who is to say that standard is right? Who is to say there is only one standard of beauty? Who is to say there is one standard of measuring intelligence? Who is to say there is one standard of measuring success?

The subtle beauty of life is that it is all about choices. We knowingly and unknowingly make them. Some negative choices have become habits so they no longer feel like a choice. But habits can be broken and new ones can be made, it just requires us to make a choice to. It is up to you to decide whether to live up to societies unrealistic measures of being enough, or to create your own.

With love,

Temi xx