Riding through the storms
Storms are life challenges that really make us quite uncomfortable. They are usually either self-inflicted, products of abuse, victimization, prejudice, envy or competition. Sometimes, they are just indicative of bad fortune (spiritual problems). They typically manifest in form of protracted, painful, or terminal sicknesses, physical accident, loss of a loved one, failure at an important task, financial turmoil or distress, loss of property, wealth or fame, divorce or separation from a soul tie, demotion, disappointments, or simply loss of self-esteem, fame, honor or virtue.
Everyone goes through storms at one point or the other. My little experience about life’s storms summarizes best practices as follows:
1. Stay away from discouragers: During your stormy period, you’ll be hurting yourself if you do not disconnect from people whose ideologies, beliefs or concepts do not motivate you to thrive, survive, face and even overcome your storm. You need all the strength, peace, joy and clarity to ride through the storms of life. Therefore, my candid advice is to stay out of the way of the angry, the scornful, the boastful, the resentful and the revengeful.
2. Take one day at a time: Stormy periods are made up of stormy days. Stormy days are typically longer than ordinary days, so you have to be very mindful of the tricks that the clock plays on you.
Life, essentially, is actually an aggregation of days. I believe that your life right now, yes, as you read this, is your actual life. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is an illusion which will certainly go in the direction of the sum total of yesterday’s lessons, today’s choices and tomorrow’s plans.
But the most important of ‘all yesterdays’ is the one whose lessons we apply TODAY. And the most successful of ‘tomorrow’s’ is the one whose plans we realistically pursue TODAY. So today is everything you really have.
It is also important to understand that storms don’t exist in yesterday. Only regrets and bad memories do. Also, storms do not exist in tomorrow, only fear of the unknown, timidity and doubts do. Storms directly attack today, the exact reason why today should be handled with an utmost sense of care and combativeness. I chose during my stormy days to focus on today, as if no other day existed. And it always work.
3. Don’t choose your friends during stormy periods; let your friends choose you: Storms always help cleanse the concept of friendship. Most definitely, depending on the type of storm and of course, the content of your character, your friends will change.
Some storms will attract sympathy, extra care and mercy. Some storms however, will make people dissociate themselves from you, and sometimes, resent you. I have seen many people add to their storms by trying to depend on their ‘friendship structure’ during stormy times, only to find out that they really had no genuine friends, only acquaintances, rivals, family ties and perhaps interests. I have also seen people who had no obvious friends previously, suddenly had the whole world become their friends during the storm. While the key to genuine friendship during the storm is friendship outside the storm, I always advocate that you remain your best self, and let your friends choose you.
4. Let go of your Ego: Storms sometimes want to forcefully strip us of our ego (pride), prestige, values or self-esteem. From my life’s experience, while I could afford to hold on to my prestige, values and self-esteem, ego often became too heavy for me to handle. This is especially so in the face of a life or career threatening storms, that tends towards complete or absolute destruction. The Bible says, pride goes before destruction. Sometimes, we had better stoop so low to make that call, make that request, make that plea or make that apology to avoid annihilation.
5. Have a great attitude: The word attitude in context means seeing the great side of things, as against seeing the bad side. It is amazing that very often, the people that make the world a better place are the most challenged. Their secret: A great attitude towards their storms!
5. Move closer to God: From my understanding, God easily gets our attention during the storm. That explains why he sometimes allows us to go through them. Your best possible friend during the stormy periods of life is God Himself. He does not keep blaming you (even if it was your fault), He does not leave you (even if you left Him), He does not hate you (even if you now hate Him), He doesn’t resent you either (even if you are now so resentful of Him). He just stays put, giving the suiting words by His Spirit, providing strength for the needed daily tasks, granting peace, throwing up Joy for you at unexpected places and instances, and of course sending timely Help, even the ones we do not recognize or even appreciate. But of course, to get the best of God, the Father, we need to have a relationship with Him. That is why he sent Jesus Christ to the World to take on the entire storm of life, so that we can have rest.
If you read to this point and you do not have Jesus in your life, please do not delay. He cares for you and want to help you overcome your storms. I could pray with you if you don’t mind if you can call (234) 08139737650 right away.
