SELF IMAGE: NOT HANDSOME/PRETTY ENOUGH???

Growing up I was made fun of having big eyes and my front teeth were big...lol...I am just glad God gave me a personality that often does not allow me to take things seriously....so it never got me down but at the back of my mind ...I knew that if people made fun of them then they are not my best features........

Fast forward to when I became a teenager, the same dudes who would make fun of me now noticed me for the eyes and the smile the very things they thought were not so lovely....I didn't believe it until a guy friend of mine stared at me and went like " you have beautiful eyes"...am guessing God  spoke to me that day because since then I saw them as that..beautiful....
Lets fast forward again....now am engaged and the man of my dreams noticed me because of the eyes and the smile...mmmmmh...who would have thought??.....

The other day, I sat down with a couple of friends and every lady had a physical feature about them that they do not like....mostly because a parent or someone else had told them that that feature is not their best.....for some it was their weight, forehead, skin, legs, their behind, bust.....and they all wished they could change it......

Thing is, we are never born thinking we are not pretty/handsome enough.....it only happens when someone points it out and tells you that you are too skinny, too fat, too short, too tall, your skin is not flawless, your eyes are too big, your hips are too big...etc....what am I getting at?

You see when God created you, He was pleased with what He made because to Him it was perfect and Beautiful and He had a purpose..so we lose sight of the definition He has of us and we believe what we are told and we start comparing ourselves to others and try to be like them....so for me this is the message I want to pass today:



TO THE MEN

God created you strong enough to protect and to provide even if people say you are too skinny or too short...you do not have to be 6 feet tall and heavily built to prove your masculinity.....you find your masculinity in Christ not on the image the world has painted......
Because God created you with that body, height, hair, no hair,..every detail about you because that is exactly the way he wanted you to be....
Throughout the bible we can see the men God used to carry His will and none of them did their physique matter as much as their heart towards God....David was not the biggest guy but he defeated a giant...Moses was not a smooth talker but He is the greatest leader that ever lived......even when Samuel was sent to anoint a king although he went for the tallest and built brother but God told Him that he was not the one..Samson was the strongest guy that ever lived but he had to live in obedience to God in order to keep that strength..again His heart mattered more....God gave different abilities to these men in order for them to fulfill their specific assignment.....imagine if David looked like Samson....I bet you, we would not be amazed by that story because we would say he was strong enough to do it on his own....
Point is....Let not your motivation to have the best body or to look a certain way be that you think you are not man enough...let it be because you already love yourself in your current state and its out of that love that you take care of your body.....God designed you with that body, height and looks for a reason and you have to live to be exactly that so that you can fulfill your assignment on earth.....

So no matter the labels put on you...you are strong, you are capable, you have potential, you have gifts, you have talents...and God loves you whether you are the biggest guy, the smallest guy, the skinniest, the tallest, the shortest....God loves you and He has already equipped you to be a man who will make a change in this generation....you are a SON OF THE LIVING GOD...


TO THE WOMEN

God describes you as a ruby....meaning you are precious and beautiful.....
The bible insists that beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.....so where does the true beauty come from...outside or inside???
Throughout the bible we see women who were used by God....even for Esther..her physical beauty was not enough to make her queen...its because she kept herself pure and because she gained favor from God with the King's servant.......all the women in the bible were able to fulfill their God given task because they cultivated the unseen qualities...look at Ruth...she was loyal....Mary was obedient...point is..none of these women were used by God because of their physical beauty because that was not enough for what God wanted them to do....
We work so hard to hide our 'flaws' in order to achieve the picture portrayed by the world of a woman who is 'flawless' so we invest in looking our best physically forgetting what it means to be beautiful....

You see your body shape/size...your height...your skin color....your eyes...the shape of your head....the size of your body parts....is exactly how God wanted you to look like to fulfill your God given destiny.....
So you are precious, you are beautiful, you are stunning, you are worth more than you think you are....you are smart, funny, you are loved and worth dying for....

So no matter how 'ugly' you think you are...you are loved by the Creator of the Universe.....the reality is... you are powerful and you are capable of changing the world....you are a DAUGHTER OF THE LIVING GOD



So every time the thought of you are not good looking enough creeps up, ladies and gentlemen remind yourselves of this.....

Prayer:

Dear God,

I have believed so much on the labels people have placed on me and I have forgot your definition of me. Lord, forgive me and help me to see myself through your eyes , help me to love myself as you designed me. Help me to desire for the best in life because I am your child. Forgive me for comparing myself to others and teach me how to be content and see myself with new eyes and have the self-confidence that only comes from you. Amen

WHY I AM WAITING TO KISS MY FIANCE ON THE WEDDING DAY

I have been contemplating on writing this post for the longest time now....I thought of writing it when we were boyfriend and girlfriend..then thought I will get the courage to write it when we get engaged and I am still fearful..thinking I should write it after we cross the 'finish line'........but after we sat down and watched our engagement video...I was convinced it is never too soon to share this.....

One of the things that happened when we got engaged was the crowd around us shouting...'kiss her!' and then we sat down down to watch the video and saw the people's disappointment when my fiance didn't kiss me....lol...we laughed....why?


So, he asked me to be his girlfriend on a Friday then we sat down  the following Sunday over lunch and talked about boundaries....he went first and the first thing he told me was....."As much as I want to kiss you, I will wait until I marry you"....he didn't even know that is exactly what I asked God for....a man who would wait to kiss me when I am his wife.....so I agreed and it was sealed among other boundaries (which I will share in another post)........

Point to note....I had never been in this kind of relationship before and I had to walk away from another relationship and decide to take one year off the dating scene to get closer to God (again, this I will share later)......... so why did we decide on this? why did I personally want this?

1. To walk in purity
You see a whole forest can be burned down with a fire that started with a spark.....same thing you can say its just a kiss...forgetting its the spark that will light that fire....
So many of us like to push the buttons to see how far is too far before we can 'sin'...forgetting whatever we do that leads to that sin is already sin in itself.....
I do not want to push those buttons I would rather avoid those buttons all together...
I know my triggers I really do not want to test them....

2. I want the kiss to mean something
For me, when the priest will finally tell him..."you may now kiss your bride"..I want it to mean exactly that..that he may NOW...not then..NOW...meaning he is now allowed to kiss me because I am his bride...I want it to have a bigger meaning than just the ceremonial thing that must be done in weddings...I want it to mean that NOW my body belongs to him,...that NOW he has the right to share that intimate kiss that shows passion with me....NOW that I will be his wife....

3. Develop communication
I used to think that one of the most romantic things a guy would do when we argue would be to shut me up with a kiss....only to realize that the issue that made you argue was never solved....
So for me, I have never been good at talking about issues...it makes me very uncomfortable...so us being in this position where he cannot shut me up with a kiss and I cannot shut him up with one too...has made me learn how to communicate and as a result I have developed emotionally as well...I no longer shrug issues or wish them away instead am forced to talk through them with him....I must say this has made us the best of friends...


I have other reasons too but I will share these 3 for now......and I just want to emphasize that....we have been able to wait this long and continue to wait only by the grace of God and the boundaries we have kept which one includes not kissing until we get married....because you cannot pray to the Holy Spirit to keep you pure yet place yourself in compromising situations...we both know that kissing will lead us to where we do not want to go now and so we agreed to wait....

Its also important for me to mention that, I used to be the girl who laughed at couples who would tell me they are waiting to kiss on their wedding day...it was absurd to me....how?....then I met Christ who renewed my mind completely and I desired exactly that...to honor Him in my relationship and then one year down the line He introduced me  to His best for me....now am the girl who gets laughed at...and I enjoy it..because it is for His sake that I am ridiculed and I pray for those who laugh to experience what I experienced....

So yes, God is gracious ...yes God can help you start over and honor Him in your relationship....Yes...its possible to wait untill marriage in this day and age.....so as we continue in this journey as we wait to kiss when we are pronounced husband and wife...we keep our trust in God because if it was just us..it would be impossible....to Him ALL Glory and Honor.

A SKILLED WORK MAN:" HURAM-ABI"

Huram..who? Who is this guy? ..is he real? where did you hear about him?...lets look at the scriptures....


2 Chronicles 2:7: “Send me, therefore, a man skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, and in purple, crimson and blue yarn, and experienced in the art of engraving, to work in Judah and Jerusalem with my skilled workers, whom my father David provided.

2 Chronicles 2:13-14: I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill, whose mother was from Dan and whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given to him. He will work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, David your father.

So this was when Solomon was building the temple for God and he wrote to Hiram, the King of Tyre and then Hiram sent him a man by the name of Huram-Abi. He is mostly compared with a man named Oholiab (Exodus 35:30-35) 

So this guy had mad skills! We can call him the principal architect (he would create any design given to him)  and engineer (he was able to work with any material given to him)...... 


This verse struck me and I remember making a silent prayer telling God...I want to be like this guy..who gets recommended by a King...... So what does it take?

1 Kings 7:14-15: He was a widow's son from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill for doing any work in bronze So he came to King Solomon and performed all his work. He fashioned the two pillars of bronze; eighteen cubits was the height of one pillar, and a line of twelve cubits measured the circumference of both.

Huram Abi was filled with wisdom and understanding that would only come from God, because even though Solomon had wisdom in building the temple, God provided him with a man who had wisdom and understanding in the skill of building the temple. We can call him the temple designer who was filled with wisdom and knowledge and Solomon the temple builder filled with wisdom and knowledge...
Where am I getting at?
The main focus on this man is in the wisdom and understanding he was filled with that enabled him to have those set of skills. The kind of wisdom and understanding that can only come from God.
Proverbs 22:29: Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank.
When we read this verse we mostly focus on our abilities, our education and the knowledge we gain from experience...do not get me wrong it is not bad. But we limit ourselves when we only look at these qualities when we can always ask God to fill us with His wisdom and His understanding then we will be able to achieve far more beyond what we thought we could.
Remember Solomon? He asked God for wisdom and he was given and the bible says there was never and will never be a King like him...why? because the wisdom he had did not come from books...or experience but it  came from God.
The same way for Huram Abi to have been able to possess such set of skills that made him be recommended by a King and stand out from the rest ...where I choose to believe that there were other skilled men but not as skilled as him...maybe his classmates.....it only had to be because he possessed wisdom from God.....
Thing is, even in our pursuit to seek to be skilled and to be the best in the places where God has put us...let us not rely on our own wisdom and understanding thinking there is no place for God in this.....the answer to getting that promotion or having the most successful business in that sector is seeking the wisdom and understanding that ONLY comes from God...this is what will make you a pace setter and a change maker in this generation....so just like Huram Abi...may you be filled with wisdom and understanding from God that will make you a skilled workman who will serve before Kings/presidents.......
Prayer:Dear God, 
I want to be the best in school/work/business, help me Lord in this pursuit to not  forget to seek wisdom and understanding that only comes from you. I pray for you to fill me with wisdom and knowledge so that even when I become the best I will not give credit to myself but all glory may go to you. In Jesus name I pray
Amen