1 Year Later….

Dear Friends,

Yes I know it has been so long since I put up a post and honestly, I’m not even sure I have a good explanation for it. Here goes nothing….

Feelings

When I felt God’s leading to start this blog, I had such a mixture of emotions. I was totally excited, curious but mostly terrified lol. The absolute feeling of fear that gripped your girl had many faces. One of them being that I felt I did not know enough to have a voice on any kind of platform, in my opinion, to witness Christ in any shape or form is an absolute privilege and a very beautiful yet sacred mandate. So, I definitely did not want to ‘mess’ this up if you know what I mean.

In addition to that, I was scared of starting and failing. Yes, you read that right. Some people that know me are probably like Mfon? Fail? LOL. Well, yeah that’s the truth. The fear that I would not be consistent with this, that I would start with all the excitement trooping in from within, few friends etc, only to lose all that steam when all the hype is gone and the discipline needed to stay the course is required. I had the wrong mindset on how to go about doing what God had asked me to do and so I fell prey to it. Imagine being so afraid of failing at something, that it causes you to lose motivation and not bother trying anymore. Can someone out there relate????

Grace

With every month that passed void of comments or ‘engagement’ on old posts or even the motivation to write any new post or a catchy yet holy caption for the gram, the guilt kept piling up as I continued to give God the bare minimum in my private communion with Him and on this blog.

“You see? I knew I’d suck at this, God I’m not the one for this, I’m inadequate, not even consistent in personal devotion, disciplined or even creative enough” Yeah, I really let the enemy have a field day with my thoughts!

But God….

I feel like everyone needs to have a “but God” moment in their lives from time to time. In my own words, it is literally a rescue mission. It can be explained as a point in the life of a christian when Jesus steps into a situation, drenches you with mercy(1Peter2:10TPT) and calms any raging storm with His Word. If you are a believer out there reading this and struggling to “perform”, Oh it is my prayer today that you would come to the end of yourself and stop all your striving to earn His approval. I’m here to tell you that He already approves of you, yes, even right now. So, Rest!

Truth

Truth/Convictions >>>>> Feelings

In John 17:17, Jesus says that the word of God is Truth and so, for every feeling of inadequacy, failure and disappointment that I’ve felt over the past 1 year as I struggled to fulfill this assignment in my own wisdom and strength, there was grace and more importantly, truth waiting to bear me up if I had just been honest with God about it all.

These 2 scriptures by the Apostle Paul brought freedom, light and strength to my worn out soul….

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness(2Cor.11:30 NIV)

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me(2Cor.12:9 NIV)

I realized I was going about this assignment without much prayer, accountability or continuous growth through spending time with God in His Word. The result of this? I found myself setting goals to achieve just so I could boast in things that glorify me and my strengths. This revealed the pride in my heart and a lack of willingness to depend on God for the strength and wisdom for what He had led me to do.

As you can imagine when this fell through, like Peter, I caved and went back to what was familiar and safe which was not trying at all.

GraceInTruth

Yet, Jesus still comes, He still draws…He met me on the shores of my comfort zone as I kept trying yet failing to figure it out on my own/doing what was familiar and safe(P.S. The “familiar” is always appealing because you are not being stretched at all).

He sent me forth again with a changed approach wrapped in these words: “Mfon, Do you love me?” And with tears in my eyes, I responded “Lord you know I do”. Then He said “Feed my sheep”. So, keep encouraging, keep blessing, living and loving but always keep your focus on ME not your imperfections.

May I always remember that in this fragile clay dwells an indescribable treasure and that in my fallenness, I’m never abandoned by God.

I hope this piece blesses you and I will see you again soon friends!!

Uwakmfon Udeh<3