New Year, New You

One of the first meals I cooked for my husband was spaghetti. He was so hungry but I assured him that from the moment you THINK about making spaghetti, to the time it hits the plate, takes precisely one hour!

It's New Years Eve and many people are going to attend watch night services, while others pray in the comfort of their homes with the hope or expectation that they will see manifestations of answered prayers in the coming year.

I'm in no position to know what you have been going through the last one year, poor finances, disappointment  frustration, guilt, all those negative feelings. Perhaps that baby you've been waiting for didn't come, maybe you didn't get that job or that promotion or contract. It could be you made a terrible decision that has effected your life dramatically and the guilt just won't go away and sits on your shoulder like an albatross. Or maybe it was a fab year all year long.

To put it frankly, it makes no difference,  because there is something that when implemented can and will change your circumstances for the better. The entrance of the Word bringeth light. This coming year can be your best year yet, where you can achieve beyond your expectations. I'm not making wild, exaggerated claims because my bible notes that the mysteries of the kingdom do not constitute an esoteric knowledge or secret information for the elite. 

Consider Matthew 25:29: "For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."

It is very difficult, almost impossible to achieve any type of success with negative feelings. You have to constantly fight and push. Nothing comes easily. And whatever you gain easily,  won't last. It could be feelings about your marriage, job or aspirations. On the other hand, feelings of success almost effortlessly manifest. Of course you still have got to do something. However you don't have to force anything. You go with the flow and your intuition leads you to opportunities and people you might never have experienced or met.

Whatever you continuously behold, you become. Laban was trying to cheat Jacob. God was watching over Jacob. Laban didn’t stand a chance of cheating him! Where Jacob got this next idea, I don’t know, but when he took Laban’s flocks down to the watering place, (Genesis 30:41) Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches that he had cut so that they were speckled or striped in the front of the animals so they would mate near the branches,

When the mother sheep started having lambs, all their babies were striped or spotted. How that worked, I haven’t a clue - except that God must have had a hand in it! Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban's animals. 

The wisdom of The scriptures is deep but what they ask is for us to be drawn into them and think about them ourselves. They require an insight or what we might call an intuition that is not strictly or merely intellectual but also comes from a spiritual capacity to perceive that which we nurture in our hearts and through a prayer life, a relationship to this spiritual reality. 

This year change your focus. Stop pointing out and focusing on the faults of your partner. Stop reminding yourself of all past disappointments and start building a list of past victories no matter how small and Focus! Focus! Focus! As this transforms the way you feel, it will transform everything on the outside also. Just like the spaghetti, we are a product of our thought-life.

Ijeoma Olujekun.