Timeless truths for
personal development spiritual growth

The Power of Reflection on Your Personal Development!

That moment comes when you reflect on the year you have had. At first, I was tempted to think of mine as just another year. I don’t know if it was Mthuli’s finance budget that had dampened my mood so badly. Or maybe it was the new job, which seemed like such a downgrade. I honestly felt like it had been another wasted year. But then I challenged myself, for the last few weeks of December, to write about all the life-altering experiences I had had. I didn’t think there would be much, to be honest; I just wanted to show God some gratitude. And I wanted to mean it. But then I started writing the list, and the more I wrote, the more I realised I had a lot to be grateful for.

“Without bragging much, the turnaround point for me was a ladies’ prayer camp I attended in June.“

Try as I may to run away from the fact, that one afternoon I spent in a prayer mountain marked me. Now that I think about it, in the moment, it all felt like a dream. But as I was writing the list, one thing I got was perspective. God has answered a prayer I prayed in January last year. After a simple prayer, I followed up with more prayer, careful planning, and intentionally seeking the opportunity for the prayer to be answered.

The most important question you will ever answer

One afternoon I was driving during an errand, when something in a sermon I was listening to struck me. The message was on purpose – how you can identify that purpose. For someone who was approaching the 30th birthday, it was a question I was revisiting more often now to make sense of life.

Everyone had a purpose the speaker said. And if the manufacturer of the iPad cares enough to explain to you how to use it, where to find important functions and what to do in the case of a defect, what more the God who created who created you?

I was challenged, for the first time to really ask myself hard hitting questions and not stop until I got them right! I wanted to know who God says I am.

For the next few days that’s all that I would think about. Eventually, I remembered an important message I had heard. After the passing of my father, I felt so exposed need of protection. It was so bad 2 days after my 28th birthday I woke up and drove to a church. I had only ever listened to their WhatsApp messages during COVID. I had no idea where I was going or what I was expecting. All I really wanted was to meet the Father.

That Sunday during the first-time visitors ministry, 2 ladies said something that left me in awe. They spoke about my job – accounting- and that I was in that career because God had called me to do the same in life. For some of you, bookkeeping isn’t really a glamorous job -or even one worth speaking of. But for me it is my comfort space.

From that moment I self-tutored myself into an A, and eventually chose it as a degree program, I could feel it in my bones that this is what I was called to. But it didn’t end there, everywhere I went, I was also seeking to put this in order – debiting the receiver, crediting the giver – making use the balance sheet was always fitted right.

I laughed because I thought to myself what kind of God cares so much about the careers, we ‘choose’ for ourselves? So much could be said about such detail. I also felt for the very first time in my life – seen. I wasn’t just another part of the multiverse, breathing to eventually die and there would be nothing to point back that I was ever a part of history.  This God knew not just my name, He knew what made me ME.

Unfortunately, so many times who we are is anchored on frivolous things – our beauty, our brains, our relationships, our achievements and our possessions. When you ask others – who do you think I am? The answer we hope demonstrates our triumphs in life, what we have conquered as well as what we have been gifted. But when you have been both beautiful and ugly, rich and poor, wise and foolish, admirable and despicable- trying to find that confidence is a paradox in itself.

I found myself there many times, never quite belonging where I was. But having no connection to where I’d been. I was a girl born in Harare raised in Mutare, Beitbridge, Bulawayo, Gokwe and then Harare. So, when asked where home was. The answer was never easy.

An accounting student pursuing a career in student entrepreneurship. An accounting graduate consulting on digital media marketing and business strategy. A media enthusiast. I almost am tempted to rash over those questions so I don’t have to deal with the long story. Because the short answer is never really enough.

When you look closely there was no place for me to belong. It perhaps seems that I like straddling the lines and colouring outside of the box. And that was the consistent prayer I made to God, show me myself, I want to know who I am. It only took the passing of my father, and my going back to God in need of a father for Him to reveal to me all these things.

It is so empowering knowing that I can go back to my maker and ask Him those personal questions- Who I am? And yes, God knows us, more than we can ever think or imagine. So, I made that decision, I would no longer be defined through my marriage, or my career, or my past. I would only be defined by the one who made me. And I really felt what Haggai felt in Genesis – a slave turned concubine, alone in the wilderness, looking for a place for her and her child, the words “I have seen the one who sees me”

This is my challenge to you today – sit down with God and reconcile who you are in Christ. Be reminded of who you were before you became who you thought you had to be.

Where to go When You Hit Rock Bottom

I grew up admiring people with simple lives. They could explain their whole life or situation in a few straightforward words. I on the other hand, I had to keep quiet. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I felt my story was long and winding. And difficult too.

And so, one morning in my grandmother’s spare bedroom, I decided that it was time that I stopped. Stopped trying to make things work, brewing the next plan, prove something to myself – or whatever! I woke up after a long night of sleepless sleep, tired as though I had worked the graveyard shift, and I surrendered everything. Never had I been desperate before that day, for someone else to be in control. Everything I had done, every decision I had made, brought me to this place. This place of unfulfilled and trapped potential. I was tired. So, I said the shortest prayer I could muster, ‘God I don’t want this anymore. I am tired. Whatever happens next, it’s your call.’

Many people call that place the rock bottom. When you land at your wit’s very ends. Finally realising you have done all that you can, and that maybe all that you can was not required to begin with! Ha! What a waste the last 6 years was. All that effort and I still couldn’t go back to college, I couldn’t afford it. Nobody could. Not for me at least.

And if nobody could, and I had proven to myself that I couldn’t as well, there should be someone else who could. Now that I think of it, it was very backward of me. In my thinking I mean. You would think with all that Sunday School memory verse cramming, I would remember life’s simple rules for success

“Seek first the kingdom of God and all those things would be added to you.”

Instead, I sought it LAST. After I had tried everything else. After I had looked everywhere else. My God in heaven must have been shaking His head at me the whole time. At such unbelief. That is what it was. I really believed that God only helped those who helps themselves. That I needed to go out there and do something for Him to show up. But He clearly didn’t need my help. I know that now. You know when He asks Job where he was when He was laying the foundations of the earth? I felt He was speaking to me too.

Processing our Situations in God

I thought my situation was out of His league. Either too big or too small. Or maybe He just didn’t care. That when He spoke about plans to prosper maybe He was talking to the Israelites – the rich Jews we all have come to know. That it couldn’t be me that He thought good over. I was an unbelieving believer. A practical atheist as they are called today. Oh, and I needed to repent.

But I couldn’t be more grateful, for that glorious moment my humility was returned back to me. It was the beginning of my journey back to the arms of my Father.

And I continued living, with no expectation, but eagerly hopeful that the God I prayed to answers prayers. It was the last time I experienced such harsh dreams, tormenting my rest. And the last time I felt responsible for myself. Whatever He willed to happen, would happen, and I was ready for it.

“Many times, when we hit that rock bottom, we simmer in our emotions, and focus on the past. What could have been, who did what, what was supposed to happen, how to get our revenge etc.

And I want to challenge you to do something different going forward. Think of these 2 men, David and Job. David who was often the centre of a series of drama in his time, was so vulnerable with God, whom God himself described as a man after His own heart. And Job, his story of loss is heart-breaking to think of – he is the grand master of rock bottom if you ask me. And he questioned God’s justice in letting all these things happened to him. His friends tried to convince him that he had definitely sinned against God that is why he deserved everything that was happening to him.

But a skewed view of all these things is that God trusted Job so much that even after losing everything, he would not take the easy way out and sin against Him.  Imagine having that much of God’s trust, that no matter what comes your way, He is confident that your soul will not get corrupted. And that He also expects the same of us. Whatever situation we find ourselves in, good or bad, our sole responsibility is to depend on Him!

Embrace the New Beginnings

I have this to say about rock bottom, because I believe that it is a beginning of greater things to come – look to your maker. Accept the situation, and when you are ready get up and do something different thereon. For me it was coming back to my foundations – I had rebelled from God in depending on my own understanding, believing the lies that he did not love me and would not care for him.

Although it has taken me a good 5 years to let go of all the control I had over my well-being (and I am still learning), I let that experience teach me to depend on the one who made me. And as the layers of control fell off me piece by piece, I would refer to my past for notes on what NOT to do.

This lesson was only possible through reflection, honesty and communion with the Lord. It is possible for you too. To think back on areas of weakness, foolishness and ignorance, and shape a better tomorrow for yourself. What more! You deserve better than all the former things in your life, and you can get that.

Remember to come back to the foundations – who you are, why you are here, how you will achieve that, where you are now, and what you need to do – when you know that, you will always find your way back!