BUBBLING THOUGHTS, TIMELY IMPLEMENTATION

Hello there! 

How are you doing this fine day? Here's hoping you're fine and that God continues to guide your path, and that you continue to obey His leading. 

Welcome to today's gist. 

Have you heard the price of tomatoes, of anything really, lately? It's outrageous! It seems like every time I go to the market, the prices of things just keep increasing. 

Thinking about the rising cost of tomatoes brought to mind an incident that happened when I was younger. One day, we were boiling some tomatoes at home, of course when I say "we" I mean the adults in the house, I was maybe 6 or 7 at the time. 

I went to play, wetin children of that age sabi pass play? When I came back for a break from the playing, I came in through the kitchen to go get water to drink. 

As I passed through the kitchen, I saw the boiling pot of tomatoes and had the inspired idea to 'help' check on the tomatoes and make sure it wasn't burning. Now don't forget I was 6 or 7, a small short girl who was barely reaching past the top of the pot, but I was determined to show that I was smart enough to help cook. What did I do? I stood on the tip of my toes and proceeded to peer into the pot. As I did that, the boiling tomato flew into my right eye. I screamed! And kept screaming. 

I ran to the parlor where my father was and told him in between wails what had happened. He helped me clean the eye and get the pain to reduce, then he offered me his glasses for the next time I decided to go on a foray of my own to check boiling tomatoes 😊. 

It's really such a funny and fond memory for me every time I think of little me trying to check boiling tomatoes. 

As I thought of this recently, I realized something and decided to share it with you: my intentions weren't bad, my actions were also not wrong, but was I in the place to be deciding to check boiling tomatoes? No. Disaster was almost certain from the moment I decided to go check on the tomatoes, if for no other reason, then because I was barely tall enough to reach the top of the pot. 

See, sometimes we have really good intentions and we try to implement these good ideas we have only to have it all fall apart. It's happened to me more times than I care to remember and I'd usually go back complaining to God and be like "but my intention was not wrong now! Why did it not work out?" The problem wasn't with my intention or my delivery, the problem was that I was rushing and moving too fast into things that I was not ready to handle, so of course it would scatter.

Sometimes, I've gone back to do those things later on and found that the venture successful. Then I'd be asking God why we had to waste so much time on my earlier failed attempt when I was eventually going to get it right. But something I've realized is that those first failed attempts were usually undertaken without any conviction from God for me to proceed: I'd just have a thought, tell myself that it was a worthwhile pursuit and move head-on into attempting to bring it to fruition without waiting to see if I really should do it and like little Achenyo, my eye go pepper me before I go run come back. 

The lesson of moving at God's pace and not overly rushing into things that are not meant for me per time is a lesson that God has been continually teaching me in recent times; very recently, and by that I mean like within the last week, I've had to go back to my drawing board and adjust my timing for some projects that I have in mind because not only was it not feasible to do it now, I was already under a lot of internal pressure when I saw that I wasn't meeting up with my expectations. God literally had to ask me if He was the one that said I should do those things now, and the moment I honestly said no, I gave myself brain and decided to focus on the things that are in my hand for the current season and reschedule those ones for the future, after all He says that "At the right time, I, The Lord, will make it happen." (Isaiah 69:22b, NLT) This means that the fruition of the plans you have will not happen because you put so much thought and action into achieving it, it will happen by God's hand and at His own appointed time. 

So I came here today merely to encourage you on two counts. Firstly, that idea that God planted in your heart that you tried before and failed, maybe you should go to Him and ask Him for the correct time for implementation, don't give up because it didn't work that one time, or 5 times, you tried it; find out from Him when the implementation process should start and then prepare yourself so that you're ready when it's time. Secondly, that bright and beautiful idea that you're itching to begin to implement, you don run am with God? Has He told you it's time for you to implement it? If He hasn't, use this period to prepare yourself as much as possible so that when He says "go", you're ready to move straight into implementation.  

NLS HOT GIST: Backlog set of Law school resumed last week and my Campus group chat has been seeing screenshots of people's thoughts about Port Harcourt and the only thing I keep saying is "una never see anything yet😂". Meanwhile, please pray for Port Harcourt, there's unrest in the city because of some Local Government elections, lives have already been lost, please pray that God brings swift resolution and peace. 

May God help us to learn to work at His pace and according to His leading. 

See you next week!

Love,

Achenyo. 

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