Sometimes you walk through town in
search of jobs and the scotching heat with insupportable and foul offensive
stench that oozes out from the gutters or refuse damp at Mokola or Kaneshie market
alone can affect your reasoning. You begin to question how the truck pushers,
kayayei and petty traders survive. Are their dreams same as yours, where are
their certificates, where do they come from, how do they take care of their
families. Answers to these questions are numerous and heart breaking. But
keeping that dream alive is vital as you keep pushing. The idea of making it
and the joy and refreshment that comes with it creates a level of energy to
never give up.
There is a strong link between our
dreams and the choices we make now. As Christians, we believe in the God factor
that define our path through the right choices. A choice made without prayer,
strategy or planning can affect your dream eventually. After all, dreams are
meant to be worked on to objectify them. Sometimes, you may be wondering if it
is your family background or parental influence that is shaping your life,
molding your conduct or ultimately determining who you are turning out to be. In
some cases, many people attribute their future to decisions they took on their educational
and academic experiences, firms they worked for or even friends they acquainted
with. Some also assume that, their lives were shaped and framed by luck or
chance. However, the Christian principle places the God factor in every step we
take. We make our own choices but its God who directs the path to the end. Equating
God into your daily plans, backed by unremitting faith and prayer will surely
yield a beautiful and meaningful end.
One
fact is certain. Good choices carefully marshalled in consultation with God
produces effective and heart pleasing results. “Everything
in your life reflects a choice you made. If you want a different result, make a
different choice” Our existence basically comprises of choices that we
make. From drinking Hausa koko (Porridge) in the morning to watching your
most favorite TV programme, from buying a sea-blue shirt instead of a green
shirt at your favorite store to adding an extra spoon of sugar in your coffee.
Choices are everywhere. It reminds me of my first computer programming
assignment. We were asked to use the “if then else statement”.
This offers a platform of assessing all the options available to you before
choosing a yes or no. Life is like that in a large context. If yes to a choice,
then result A else result B.
Despite
our parents making most of our decisions for our better and brighter future
when we’re very young, we start learning how to choose between the options
placed strategically in front of us and make decisions. The choices you make
and the decisions you take have a long-lasting impact on your life.
They make us special, put a bar of distinction between us and everyone
else.
Our lives are a series
of choices we’ve made so far. Whether you feel it immediately or not, your life
is being shaped by the choices you are making in the present. According
to Keri Russell, sometimes
it is the smallest decisions that can change your life forever”.
“I believe that we are solely responsible
for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word,
and thought throughout our lifetime.” -Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross. I count it all joy with my current state of life, what I do for God
and society and the people I have come to associate myself with. When I decided
to take a graduate course, I was caught between marriage or changing jobs. The
next action was to strategically study, plan my marriage, save enough to move
out from my family house, settle down and start my family. In the same vein,
the choice of programme to read is a part of the calculation. It was not easy
going through these choices. It came with its own consequences and challenges.
Now I call myself a father, a husband, a graduate, a security analyst and a
knowledge manager.
If
I had changed jobs, delayed my marriage, took another course or even married a
different woman, my case or current state would have been a different
story. The fact is, if you decide to go
the A, direction, or the B curve, the end result though difficult to decipher
would always be different whether good or bad. However, as Christians, the
faith factor, the hope and prayer factors always trigger a positive means to a
good conclusion. God now has a perfect divine plan and destiny set up for your
life – and He will now be the One to guide you every step of the way into the
fulfillment of that divine plan. What specific jobs you will now be taking will
be very important in your own spiritual growth and development with the Lord.
The jobs you will now be taking will be building blocks that will lead you into
whatever His specific plan and destiny is going to be for your life.
This
first verse will specifically tell you that God now has a definite PLAN and FUTURE
set up for your life. This is from the prophet Jeremiah and it is a very
popular verse. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord,
thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah
29:11). One other aspect of the choices we make are the “What if
statements”. Some may call it the doubts. So, choices of faith and
doubts become a battle ground in the mind. What if I had gone for Economics?
What if I had chosen some other college? What if I had pursued Law? What if I
had gone abroad? Everyone doubts from
time to time. Sometimes, even the strongest among us have doubts. Having doubts
doesn’t make us any less important in God’s eyes. God works through us despite
our weaknesses. He loves us despite our failures. Even when we have doubts and
are faithless, God remains faithful because He remains true to Himself (2
Timothy 2:13).
Sometimes,
we make bad choices and often brim with misery and regret when we realize our
mistake. That’s part of being human. When we flip through our diaries or
literary books and go over the deeds of our past lives we had once engaged in,
instead of being ashamed of who we were, we must be proud what we have become
in the Lord. For every sinner has a chance to repent to become a saint. We
can’t undo the past errors, but we can surely always learn from it. Choices are the building blocks of our lives
and despite all the mistakes one makes, a new day brings with itself new
opportunities and a whole new world of choices. Remember that the choice
is yours. It has always been. I also want to encourage that, strategy, deep
research, consultation, patience and critical thinking serves as a guide to the
choices we make. We need to calibrate our options into good prioritized order
and pray before the next step. “We are the creative force of our life, and
through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to
do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.” —Stephen Covey
In the words of Ayn Rand, “Everyman builds his world in
his own image, he has the power to choose, but no power to shape and escape the
necessity of choice”. Without question, you are a unique, one-of-a-kind
combination of physical characteristics, personal interests and emotional
feelings that collectively define you as an individual. Yet, it’s not
this unique package that determines the enjoyment and effectiveness of your
life, but how you choose to use it and who leads that
decision making that counts.
Therefore, understanding the role that
choices play in defining your life is the most important thing to learn if you want
to fully develop the life you have been given. The magic is total dependence on
God for wisdom and direction. Truly, it is the God factor that shapes and fine
tunes the results of our choices. Trust me, what may seem a perfect decision
per the options you considered could have been very bad if left to continue.
God is always working on us. He holds the hinges of our destinies.