Why You are not Experiencing Any Progress
in Life
When there is no success, there
can’t be any progress
If you are evaluating your
achievement and you feel you are not making any progress in life this is for
you.
Stagnation is a word we all
loathe but I have seen it play itself out in many ways, in our lives. But, why
do we honestly stay on the same spot year in year out? There is a soul
searching post; it will jolt you out of slumber but if you are happy with your
current situation on life, please stop reading this article NOW!
REASONS
WHY WE ARE NOT EXPERIENCING ANY PROGRESS IN LIFE ARE:
Reason
Number 1: You probably don’t know you’re unlimited
I often get amazed when
Christians believe they are limited from achieving certain things. I want to
say it loud and clear, there’s NO LIMITATION ANYWHERE! The only
limitations that exist were created by you. I once wrote in this post that life
is supposed to be lived to the fullest, so, think out the box, just think
outside the box but a colleague took it a step further. He said there is no
box, just think and I felt what a way to convey the message of out unlimited
nature! In all truth, we were unlimited before sin came but Christ paid the
supreme sacrifice to restore us to our original position. But the Big question
is; are we taking up the offer of Christ to regain our unlimited nature? If you
have taken up the offer, I say congratulations; if you are yet to do so, I urge
you to take that step of faith now! Only that can you truly be unlimited, you
will know by the way.
Reason
Number 2: You are not questioning the status quo
You can never experience progress
in life if you often settle for the status quo. To move forward in life, you
have to question the status quo. You have to go against the norms and what everybody
accepts as normal. You are definitely going to face persecution for doing this
but take solace in the fact that as you read this, possibility thinkers around
the world are exploring new ways of managing
(and even curing) HIV, developing new energy sources and generally improving
the quantity of life. They are challenging the status quo against all odds and
you should too.
Reason
Number 3: You are not increasing capacity
How many books have you read in
the past seven months? What trainings have you attended to increase your
knowledge and capacity? One thing is, your life would never go beyond your
capacity; you therefore have to increase your capacity to Love all and sundry
(regardless of their feeling toward you); you have to increase your capacity on
your job (learn new, faster and efficient ways of doing things); you also have
to increase your capacity in marriage. You cannot face the challenges of a 10 –
year-old marriage with the capacity of a newly-wed. As you grow, your capacity
has to grow.
Reason
Number 4: You don’t have the instinct to increase
I must confess that I got this
point from Bishop T. D. Jakes’ message titled Instinct to Increase and in it;
he talk about the fact that some people live on based on instructions while
others live based on their instincts. In his words, “smart people live based on
instructions but great people live based on their instincts.”
What
then is Instinct?
Instinct makes you know what to
do at the right time, with the right people and at the right place.
Instinct is what makes a one year
old child stretch his legs to learn how to walk; nobody needs to tell him that.
In the parable of 10 talents, the
Master of the House gave each of the three servants talents (He gave the first
talents; he gave the second two talents and gave the third one talent). He
proceeded on a journey afterwards. He did not instruct them to increase or
double their talents but two of the servants followed their instincts to double
their gifting. The last servant buried his own talent but the Master was
furious with him (in other words, he didn’t have the instinct to increase is
talent).
You find a similar situation
where Jesus healed the 10 lepers and asked them to go and show themselves to
the High Priest. Only one of the lepers followed his instinct to show his
appreciation to Jesus (the other nine simply followed the instructions of
Jesus). But Jesus lamented about this when he asked the only leper who came;
“where are the other nine?” You are probably going to ask why Jesus wants to
see them when he didn’t expressly say so (welcome to the world of instincts, a
land where nobody tells you what to do, you just feel like it and do it). These
two stories show that people become great only by listening, trusting and
acting on their instincts.
Reason
Number 5: You are babysitting your gifts
Anything you babysit in your life
will not grow. In the parable of 10 talents, we saw the servant who hid the
talent babysat it and gained nothing back. He was not willing to take any risk
with the talent; he was just okay with it. As you read this, begin to ponder,
begin to ask yourself: what talents am I babysitting in my life? Am I
babysitting my business? Am I babysitting my marriage? If you babysit a creche,
there is no way it would grow to become a Nursery and primary school. So, stop
babysitting your ideas and talents; give them wings to fly.
Reason
Number 6: You are not taking advantage of opportunities in your life
If you read the parable of
talents to the end, you will recall how the master reacted when the third
servant brought his talent without an increase. He was practically livid.
That is how God react when we
encounter opportunities but refuse to take advantage of them either because of
fear or lack of courage. But the truth is, people who take advantage of
opportunities also feel the fear but do it anyway. Not taking advantage of
opportunities also feel fear but do it anyway. Not taking advantage of opportunities
could also stem from the fact that they are disguised as challenges.
They demand a lot from us and
because we cannot even perceive them as opportunities, they tend to slip
through our fingers.
It’s amazing how our blessings
and promotion are wrapped around adversity. When you look at David’s life, you
realize that all his life, he had face adversity to progress to a new level. He
had to endure the challenges of working for King Saul in order to become the
next king of Israel. For every new level, don’t forget there is a new Devil to
content with. So don’t stop running away from challenges, it could be the
vehicle God wants to use to life you up.
Summary
and Action Take-Away
If you want progress in Life, you
know just what to do now. Don’t just read this post, come up with action points
and by all means, take action. If you do this, progress awaits you on the other
side.
