INspire

Power

Of

Intention

Aspire to Inspire

By Mazuba Mwiinga

Intention 1:             Rise And Shine

 “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” -  Nelson Mandela.

Each one of us has scales or standards by which we gauge ourselves. We also have classes or what others call social stratus. And these classes have been pins in someone’s skin. They have made many potential people fall and fail just for the mere fact of a name of a class. These standards have robbed many, of their destines and dreams, because they day in and day out lived by these standards. They were their rules or laws of life. But I love Jesus’ words about the followers of the law. As quoted by Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus says, “We walk by faith and not by sight”.

However standards are very good because they act as a barometer to direct us when we go off line and they act as geographical campus to direct us into the right direction. But what diffuses many people about these standards is the fact that when one rule of a standard is broken, they suffer from the paralysis of perfectionism. They become so hard on themselves or if they are bosses they become so hard on others for this.

These people live and work in fear. Their conscious is not on their work but on their standards. They become uncreative because they fear to fall; to break the rule. They can’t think outside the box because their thoughts are within the rule; the standard. They can’t initiate an idea on their own unless it is approved by the standard, even when the standard has no idea how this idea can be done. Often times, when the standard, can’t understand the idea, it will dismiss it as a ‘below standard’ idea even when it would have been an explosive idea. This in turn, dims the fire in the rising stars; it de-motivates the excitement in the idealist and freezes the talents in the vein of those who were born to create.

As a human being, you need not to fear to fail. As a human being you need to risk failure for you to explore all the avenues of reality to come out with a brilliant shock absorber the world will ever wonder at. Many people have failed to excel because of the incessant fear of failure; fear to break the standard rule. They have become dormant and unrealistic because they can’t move forward; they can’t experiment; they can’t test an idea fearing the rule will be broken. Proverbs Chapter 3 Verses 25 – 26 says, “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be your confidence”.

What they have failed to know is the fact that, we learn far more from our mistakes than our triumphs. We become wiser and more intelligent through errors we make. We become more creative and innovative through re-testing and re-testing our ideas and models. We eventually become super stars through the numerous crashes we have had in our lives.

As a human being you need to wake up to your real life and love your mistakes because no one wants to make mistakes in life. We all get into a contract with ourselves to do the best we can ever do to better our lives according to the judgements of the day. But half way through our trip we strip and fall. The longer we will stay there on the ground crying over the pains of our fall, the more time we waste to achieving our happiness. However the faster we stand up and walk, the quicker we find an alternative to correct our mistakes.

Forget about the religious part of Jesus first; not that it’s not important but just so, you are able to get me right here. Do you think it was an accident for Jesus to fall while carrying the cross to Gorrogotta? May be yes; or maybe not. But what I know is that, every bit of Jesus’ life on Earth was symbolic. There is nothing that Jesus did out of his own will or out of his own desire without it having a meaning to your life and my life. Take him as an ordinary man born of an ordinary woman, and you will understand that his life was all meant to be that way. And only those who believed in him knew that.

Every time he fell down, Jesus woke up and walked hoping he won’t fall again. When he fell the third time, his strength was giving up, but someone’s strength was just beginning he was helped till to the Hill where he was nailed to the cross. What do you think would have happened if he failed to wake up the first time he fell down? Learning from him, our lives today are no difference from this short reminder. Jesus had a mission and he achieved it by continuing walking up to the Hill. We too have missions in our lives. We have goals to achieve, but often times we fall; some never stand up to walk again. Some take time to come to their senses. Others stand up and walk immediately they fall. What they fail to know is that, when our strengths give up, the natural powers of our God, take up our tasks and drive us to our destination. And this can only happen when we have a total belief and conviction in what we want to achieve.

It’s this spirit in us that drives us to achieve our dreams that need to be fed with perseverance all the time if we are to reach there. Every time we make mistakes in life, we need to realise our stupidity but never forsake ourselves. Never condemn ourselves, but the actions we have done. We need to tell ourselves that we were born to shine, and shining we must be. We need to rise up from the doldrums of our fears and learn from the mistakes and revise our ways. We need to have the panache to crash as we take our ideas on a test drive.

We need to know that a human being was not designed to be defeated. God cannot give us anything that we cannot handle, even when sometimes it may seem like it. A Germany philosopher Nietzsche once said that, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”. We need to rise above our mistakes and faults and do our best to fly with the Angels as Mike Lipkin puts it. Oscar Wilde said that, “Man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s heaven for”, anyway.

Often times we wait so that we ‘calm’ down and resolve our paralysis before we embark on another try. When Jesus fell he didn’t ask for time to rest. Every time he would stand up and walk. We too need to get good by getting going. As we walk, we perfect our ideas, we re-chart our campus; we re-draw our models because a time for resting will rob us of a chance to contain our eagerness to reach our destination. It will make us be complacent with ourselves and fail to realise the importance of our journey because speed is a necessary asset in achieving one’s goals. Remember when Jesus was about to be arrested after being betrayed by Judas? It’s a famous incident even to those who don’t read the bible. He told Judas, that whatever you want to do, ‘do it fast’.

‘Do it fast’ are the key words. Jesus knew that if Judas delayed, the mission would have been aborted and the dream would not have been achieved.

We very often hide the brilliance in us and conform to follow standards not because we believe in the standards, but because we have been conditioned as to think that we can’t perform beyond certain levels, may be because we are short or tall, or dark in complexion or are from poor backgrounds. These beliefs have engulfed most of us to such levels that we have defied our own efficacy. We have denied ourselves golden chances of excelling in the areas of our own abilities and interests.

What we need to know is that, each one of us is capable of doing anything that we wish to do because all of us were created by one hand. And that hand believes in fairness and justice for all. The energy that we carry in our bodies is the same energy every other creature on earth carries. What an acrobatic Cat can do, we too can do. However what confuses us is that, we don’t know how to tap that energy in us because we aren’t sensitive with our own abilities. We lack moral faith. We condemn ourselves to being nonentities when we are not. We don’t believe in ourselves when we are supposed to. We lower ourselves as to say that only ‘those’ can do it.

Esther Hicks in her book The Teachings of Abraham says that, “You are the only one who creates your own reality. No one else can think for you, no one else can do it for you, it’s only you. Every bit of it”

You are indeed a spirit being, created in the image of the creative source. You have the power within you to be whatever you want to be. You are a star that shines brightly in the dark sky. You are the sun rays that shoot in the eastern horizon signifying a new day being born. Today rise and shine in your heart and be that which you want to be in life. Defy the standards and create your own outstanding trends for everyone to follow.

Always intend to aspire to inspire others with the gifts that God has given you. Use them to plant joy in others and to bring blessings to everyone. And in turn, your own light will reflect in you. Nelson Mandela once said that, “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”.