Making Bold Mistakes

 

Most people are afraid of making mistakes. The fear that they will fail, keeps them from going after their dreams.

 

Christianity is not about doing what’s right or not doing what’s wrong; it is about working with God. He knows where you are going and if there is anyone out there to help you get there it’s Him. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes; it’s much better to make mistakes in Him than to walk without error without him (which is not possible by the way). One of my wonderful friends, Deborah Mayuni once told me that, “The guy messing up inside the kingdom, will always be better than the guy who is not messing up and is outside the kingdom”.

 

Make bold mistakes. Remember that your mistakes fall in God’s plan for you. You are not a surprise to God. God is not going to be like, “what now! I didn’t see that coming”. No man! your future is past tense to God. He knew you before you were formed and He knows your beggining from the end and your end from the beginning, so yeah, chill. All the mistakes that you are going to make are covered in God’s insurance policy called salvation.

 

I know there are times maybe you have done stuff that are so abhorrent, you don’t even wanna talk to God about it. Been there, done that. You know that He knows everything but you have done something so gross and embarrassing, you don’t wanna table it with Him. Let me break it down for you: He knew that you were going to do what you did before you even hatched the idea of doing it. Checkmate! Your life is history to God.

 

There are other times when you do things that you think you have messed up your whole life, like you have blown it all up. You begin to see your future in flames. Believe you me, you cannot cook up a scheme to completely disrupt God’s plan for you; I know you are creative, but you are not that creative. Lisa Bevere puts it this way, “If you think you have blown God’s plan for you life, rest in this; you my beautiful friend are not that powerful”.

 

God didn’t save you from just your past sins, he saved you from all you sins (mistakes), past, present and future. The mess you are in is the reason why he has mercy. The grossness of your sin is the reason why he has grace. Am i giving you license for sin? Nope, like Paul said (cite)…On the contrary, I want you to be liberated and empowered to live fearlessly for God. Don’t let the fear of failure cripple you ability to succeed.

 

The fear that you are going to make a mistake, is the only true mistake that you can ever make.

Celebrating Greatness

It was one of those days. Yeah, this was before I knew that I can choose not to have a “one of those days” day. So it was one of those days when I had messed up again and I was there wondering whether Romans 8:28 was just in my Bible or whether it was really true that, “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. I wasn’t convinced yet. 
But the good thing was. I always new where to go. I always new who to go to: Deborah Mayuni. I can’t quite remember how our conversation went, but there was something which she said that just changed my understanding of Grace forever. She said, “José, the person messing up in the kingdom will always be better than the person who doesn’t mess up but is outside the kingdom”. That’s all I needed. 
Since that convo, I must admit my messing up has taken a nosedive. Understanding that there is nothing that I can do to make God angry, has helped me love God more. Knowing that God’s love for me isn’t hinged on what I do or don’t do, has changed my life. I thank God for Debbie. Today is her birthday so this blogpost is a celebration of her; an appreciation of pure greatness. 
One of the things that Debs said to me most of the time was, “you will turn out just fine”. And guess what? I did.  Sometimes it’s easier to believe in ourselves when we are surrounded by people who believe in us. People whose faith can propel us into the heights of our on faith.  
We all need mentors, teachers and life coaches: people to believe in us when we are “of little faith”. People to provide jumping cables when our faith is  running low on zeal. People to save us from drama and laugh with us when we pull some theatrical stunts. Thank God I have a lot of those people. You should too. 

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#HappyBirthdayDebbie

#CerebratingGreatness 

#ItsDebsBirthday

#IamGladYouCame

#ICantKeepCalmItsDeborahsBirthday

What is Success?

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I think an iPad would make a very good table mat. What do you think? Silly I know, but seriously though, I think it would. Let’s for a minute assume that there is some guy out there who uses his iPad as a table mat; his use of the iPad as a table mat, no matter how successful or convenient, doesn’t make an iPad a table mat.

Success at anything lies in finding out the purpose for which something was made and using it accordingly. If you use something for a purpose for which it was not intended, no matter how successful you are, you have failed. Purpose is the true measure of success.

 

Mark Twain said, “The most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why”. Success in life doesn’t lie merely in the greatness of one’s achievements. Success is achieving greatness in the context of one’s purpose for life. Success that is achieved outside one’s purpose is failure. For example, if you were purposed to be a basketball player and you are a singer, you have failed, regardless of how great you are as a singer.

Let’s go back to my iPad-mat joke. Imagine if the Apple executive was to find you conveniently placing a hot bowl of baked beans on the iPad air, how would he feel? How proud would he be for the work of his hand? Not so proud I assume. He wouldn’t be happy because you are misusing and abusing the iPad. 

For fear of failure people settle for success in areas that don’t matter. Failing really isn’t the greatest tragedy in life, succeeding at things that don’t matter is. Find your purpose in life and do your best to achieve​ it. Don’t settle for less when you were made for more.

Maybe I should share my iPad-mat idea withTim Cook and perhaps they may create an iMat. Lol! Jokes aside, don’t strive to get credit for what you arent accredited for. Find your purpose and live life big.

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The Hope of Glory

 

 

I have come to learn that if you are not a Christian the world can be a very ruthless place to live in. The other day I was listening in to a conversation of some fellow who was explaining an ordeal of his miseries. As he was narrating to his friend what he has been through, I sat there and thought to myself, “how can someone be in so much pain and misery?” Not that I have known no pain or suffering or anything. But this guy wasn’t just suffering; his voice resonated with an echo of hopelessness and despair. He was living without hope.
As I kept eavesdropping, I later on came to learn that this person was not a Christian. And all of a sudden his suffering began to make sense to me. I now made sense of how he could be so hopeless. He doesn’t have Jesus the hope of glory.

When you have Jesus, he doesn’t just give you hope; He is the Hope. He becomes the hope of glory, the hope of a brighter tomorrow, the hope of a prosperous future. As Paul put it in the book of Colossians, the most amazing mystery of all time is: “Christ in me, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). So this hope isn’t outside Christ, you get this hope when Christ is in you.

I know there are people who ask, “If good is good why does He allow people to suffer”. Actually, He doesn’t. He already did all that He could to rectify the evils of the Fall (sin) and that was when He sent Jesus to die for our sins and resurrect for our justification. If you can just believe in Him, you will be exempted from leaving a hopeless and meaningless life. Life without Jesus isn’t just difficult, it is impossible. There is no life outside Christ. He is the Life (John 14:6).

You can make that decision today to receive Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior today. All you have to do is say the prayer at the bottom of this page to yourself in all earnestness. After doing that, hit my inbox and I will help you out with any other thing that you might want to know about this beautiful Jesus. 

Jesus came that you might live an abundant, fulfilling, hopeful and beautiful life (John 10:10b). There is no reason why you should live like Jesus never came. He came and He came for you.

Prayer of Salvation

“O Lord God, I believe with all my heart in Jesus Christ, Son of the living God. I believe He died for me and God raised Him from the dead. I believe He’s alive today. I confess with my mouth that Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life from this day. Through Him and in His Name, I have eternal life; I’m born again. Thank you Lord, for saving my soul! I’m now a child of God. Halleluiah!”

Try Hard, Fail Harder

by Jose K. Masawanie, Jun.

Ask any of my friends they will tell you that Stephen Curry is my favourite NBA player and Golden State Warriors is my favourite team. Apart from Klay Thompson’s 60-point game in 3 quarters (Klay’s stats for that game were staggeringly unreal), Steph Curry’s record-breaking 13 3-pointers against New Orleans Pelicans on Nov, 8 made my 2016 in terms of basketball.  Stephen Curry made 13 out 17 3-point shots in a win against New Orleans Pelicans and set the record for the most 3-pointers made in a regular season game. And FYI, the previous 3-point record of 12 was held by Kobe Bryant, Donyell Marshall and of course Stephen Curry.

What excited me the most was not just because he set a new 3-point shooting record (Curry and the Warriors set records all the time); but the fact that he made 13 of 17, 3 pointers, when he was coming from a game where the Warriors lost against the Lakers and Steph had made 0 of 10 3 pointers, making it the first time in 157 consecutive games when Steph failed to make a 3 pointer. Think of it this way: what motivated him to try and shoot 3’s again after not making any in the previous game? I mean, he had all the reasons to not attempt any more 3 pointers and maybe just make assists (he is also very good at that). But he kept shooting. He didn’t stop trying.

Here is another fact about Stephen Curry: He has led the past four seasons in NBA in 3-point shots made. He keeps breaking his own record in 3-point shooting. But what most people don’t know is that Steph has also led in 3-point shots attempted in these past four seasons. So basically, he had led in the previous seasons because he attempted more 3-point shots than the other players. He tried harder than the other guys.

Since I am a blogger not a sports analyst you might be wondering what my point is here: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”, Wayne Gretzky. Most people fail because they don’t try and they don’t try because they are afraid they are going to fail. Someone said, “fear (of failure) kills more dreams than failure ever will”.The difference between failure and failing is attitude and the action that follows that attitude. You are not a failure until you give in to failing. Sometimes success comes in easy but many times the only way to success is to try harder even if you keep failing. Failing is temporary. Failing is part of success.

Winston Churchill said, “success is stumbling from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”. The people who have done great things in this world aren’t necessarily the smartest; most of them just tried harder and “stayed with problems longer” as Albert Einstein would put it. They maintained enthusiasm and focus even in the advent of repeated failure and recurrent disappointments. When Thomas Edison was working on the light bulb he failed 10,000 times and after he had succeeded this is what he said:”I have not failed. I have found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. What an attitude.

In 2017, I would like to challenge you to try harder and stay enthusiastic. Those challenges that you have, stay with them longer. Don’t throw in the towel. Rev. Dr. Chris Oyakhilome D.D. of Believers’ Loveword Inc. likes to say, “problems gravitate towards their solution”. If you can see the problem, then you are the solution or you have the solution to it. Try harder and stay with the problem longer, you will succeed. It’s better to try and not succeed than not to try and not know whether you would have failed or succeeded. Trying may not guarantee you success, but you are guaranteed to fail if you don’t try. Trying is in itself success. Success is a process not an event or an achievement, and trying and failing are part of that process. Someone who doesn’t quit doesn’t fail. If you have to try, try hard, and if you have to fail, fail harder, but whatever happens don’t stop trying.

#2017Goals

#IFlourish

BECOME YOUR DREAM II

Jose K. Masawanie, Jun.

 

It’s okay to be “you”. You don’t have to be like someone else to be successful. You don’t have to become the next Steve Jobs, William Shakespeare, Picasso or Mozart. Just be the best version of you. In your best form even those people you look up to, would look up to you.

Nothing wrong with getting inspiration from what others have accomplished. We actually need that from time to time. But don’t be inspired to be them, be inspired to be the best version of you. You are unique, we all are. We are about 7 billion people on the face of the earth and no two finger prints are alike. That shows that you cannot be like anyone else. If you try to become like someone else you may succeed at becoming the most impressive copy-cat; but that’s what you will be, a copy-cat. Be original.

You don’t have to be complicated to be creative

By being original I am not saying you should launch a mind rocket to the moon to get some outta-space idea,no. You don’t have to be complicated to be creative. Most of the time creative ideas lie in plain sight and are trampled upon by most people. Like Albert Einstein said, “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought“. Within you and around you lies opportunities to trigger and unearth the “you” the world has been waiting for.

You should understand that there is a version of you that the world has been expecting. The world is hurting, and it is waiting for you to help it. The world needs you. The world is waiting for the “you” that will find a cure to the so-called incurable disease, the you that will revolutionize the tech-world, the “you” that will make great discoveries and inventions. If you hide under the shadows of other people’s greatness, the world will be robbed of your greatness.

All great inventions and discoveries are interrelated. We wouldn’t have Facebook, if we didn’t have computer technology and the internet. Your hiding of your talent could be hindering the blossoming  of other great talents from. Get out of your cocoon, spread your wings and fly. Don’t be afraid of shinning your shine.

You are in a class of your own, don’t live like a commoner. As John Mason would put it, “You were born an original don’t die a copy“. Become your dream.

BECOME YOUR DREAM

By Jose Masawanie, Jun.

Growing up, I was often asked the question: What do you want to be when you grow up? That question was easy to answer when I was in the lower classes of elementary school because all I had to do was parrot what the previous guy had said. Pretty easy. So, turns out everyone in our class wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a pilot, an accountant, a teacher, a policeman or an engineer. Fantastic!

But as we got to the senior classes of elementary school the reality of those professions began to settle in and the enthusiasm gradually wavered. Especially upon learning that you cannot be an accountant or an engineer if you have not memorized the multiplication table, which was always at the back of our notebooks. Pretty radical I know!

In secondary school, Calculus, Map Reading and Company wavered these dreams even more for most people. And then to apply for college most of the time you had to consider your aggregate points before circling MBBS or Bachelor of Electrical Engineering as your first choice. And sometimes you would be redirected to a program which you did not apply for. And then you would end up in a Drama 101 class when you wanted to do Botany. Yeah, pretty dramatic!

What’s the point? just wait I am getting there.

And if you are like me and did BAH (Bachelor of Arts Humanities, pronounced the way it is spelled), and majored some socially unorthodox courses like English, Philosophy, Drama or Classics oh boy!!! The jokes on you are pretty classic. The kind of interrogations that you endure about what you did in college take the form of academic witch-hunting. People take turns asking you: “what will you do with you degree? who will you work as? Who is going to hire you?”

Well, In my case it gets more interesting when I let them know that I am a writer and a poet, and that writing is pretty much what I do. They go like, “dude! You are in Malawi, in Africa, people don’t buy books to ‘read’ here. If people don’t even go to the library to read free books, do you think they are going to buy your books? At this point all I can do is smile at their quizzical faces.

Now here is the point: BECOME YOUR DREAM and take pleasure in whom you have become.

You don’t have to go do a second degree in Economics or Law because that’s the big thing right now. Bloom where you are planted. Believe you me, grass is always greener on the other side. Do what you are passionate about about. if you can’t, be passionate about what you are doing. By the way, nothing wrong with getting an Economics degree on top of your B.A. (English) degree . If that’s what you want, pull a Nike already- Just do it.

Don’t let money, fame or status come in between you and your dream. I know that at the mention of money your eyebrows are already on the match, but please stay with me. I am by no means a minister of the “poverty gospel” (whatever that means); on the contrary I am a “radical” christian who believes in prosperity. My point on money is that, money should not be the point. It should not be the motivation. Neither should fame or status. Become you dream. When you do, these other things will come chasing after you.

Don’t make money your product, its a by-product. Its easy to loose focus, when your focus is on money. And in the end you loose both your dream and the money.

Be what you want to be and be the best in your field. Dream. And unless your dream is to be a dreamer, wake up and become your dream.

LEARN TO LIVE WITH YOURSELF

By Jose Masawanie, Jun.

 

You are the person you have closest to you. Learn to live with yourself. Learn to love yourself. Embrace yourself. Don’t allow your mistakes to alienate you from yourself. Don’t let failure alienate you from yourself. Beating yourself up for failing won’t make you any better. Torturing yourself for making mistakes won’t correct them. You are more than the mistakes you have made. Your worth transcends you errors.

My mentor likes to say, “make your mistakes boldly”. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes; they are part of the success process. Enjoy the mistakes that you make. Instead of baby-sitting failure, laugh about it and move on with your life.

Why should anybody celebrate you when you don’t even see the need to celebrate yourself?

Learn to live with yourself. Learn to love yourself. Smile at yourself in the mirror more often. Hug yourself more often. Buy yourself a gift on your birthday. Congratulate yourself for those achievements. Why should anybody celebrate you when you don’t even see the need to celebrate yourself?

It will be hard for you to love others if you do not love yourself. You will find it hard to live with other people if you can’t stand yourself. The Bible commands us love our neighbor as we love ourselves.But you cannot love your neighbor, if you don’t love yourself. If you are one of those who find it hard to compliment other people, try to compliment yourself and you will begin to see good things in others that call for a compliments.

Learn to live with yourself; enjoying every moment of your life. Enjoy the shape of your head. Enjoy the color of your skin. Lamenting over how short you are won’t make you any taller; so you might as well enjoy being short. You don’t have to be like someone else to enjoy life. You can enjoy your life the way you are.  And guess what! God likes you the way you are. He loves you the way you are. So, you can also love yourself the way you are, it doesn’t hurt.

CONNECTIONS

by Chikondi Kateta

 

Many believe that success comes because of their connections in life. They believe for them to get a job, they must know someone who is well connected in the society or know someone who knows someone well connected or on top in the society without which their chances of getting a job get slimmer and slimmer by the day. So their lives revolve around getting connected than on cultivating what they have.

Most of the time the people who are looking for connections or relying on others to get them to the top do so as an excuse for their in incompetence. While others do so because they are looking for a shortcut to success; they don’t want to go through the process. But success is not an event or a position, it is a life-long process.

It is wrong to believe that who you know will determine how far you go. Even more wrong for a child of God to think in those lines because you are already connected to the only important person that you need to be in connection with. The most important question is what you know and what you have. The world is always looking for solutions and what you know and have is more needed than who you are connected to. If what you have is worth people’s attention, you will have their attention.

If you are the guy carrying a torch in a dark room, you don’t have to announce your presence, the torch will.

If it was true that who we know mattered most then every child and sibling of every successful person would be successful too. But that is not the case. Your talents and gifts are more important. It is not enough to know someone, you must possess something that others are looking for. John Maxwell said “no man can network himself to success unless he has something to offer in the first place”. Aim at harnessing your gifts and talents and ultimately they will bring you before kings and men of authority.

Don’t wait for connections, create them. Don’t wait for opportunities to show up, bring them forth. You can create connections by providing your services wherever you are, whenever you can. Nothing wrong with wanting to catch the big fish, but if you currently have access to a pond with pilchards; catch pilchards. Serve where you are, connections will come looking for you.

ARE YOU LIVING OR JUST “NOT DYING”?

By Jose Masawanie Jun

 

In the animated adventure comedy film The Croods, there is an interesting conversation between a daughter and a father. The father was accustomed to living in caves, in the dark because he thought it was way safer to live in solitary and in the dark away from any manner of risks. The daughter on the other hand was adventurous. She wanted to explore the world and was tired of living in the dark. So when her dad reasoned with her that staying in the dark caves was what kept them (their family) alive, she retorted, “that wasn’t living, that was just not dying”.

Are you living or just “not dying”? Are you living or existing? Biologically, you have to grow every day to stay alive. The same applies to the emotional, social and intellectual faculties of your life. If you are not getting better at that craft of yours, you are dying.

Death is a process of cessation or deterioration. Death isn’t just when a mass of flesh is lying motionless in a coffin and being lowered 6 feet down. Every day which you are not growing, every day which you are not improving your life; you are dying. That means if you haven’t been growing in your life for some time now, you are a dead man walking.

Challenge yourself to grow every day. Learn something new every day. Take an online course, read a book, enroll for weekend classes, learn a second language. Do whatever it takes to stay alive. In your field of expertise if you do not grow “some”, someone will grow “some” somewhere and replace you.

You have to increase you speed just remain where you are

You need to increase even the more to keep on progressing.If you stop learning you will become obsolete. What you learnt yesterday, has brought you this far, you have to learn something today to get you to tomorrow. Be important, be relevant. Knowledge empowers us to live today and more knowledge ensures us a place tomorrow. Learn to learn. Always learn, always be a student.