“One day when you wake up, you will find that you have become a forest. You have grown roots and found strength in them that no one thought you had. You have become stronger and and more beautiful. Full of life giving qualities.You have learned to take all the negativity around you and turn it into oxygen for easy breathing . A host of wild creatures live inside you and you call them stories. A variety of beautiful birds rest in your mind and you call them memories. You have become an incredible self sustaining creature of epic proportions dependent on God. And you should be proud of yourself, of how far you have come from the seeds of who you used to be ” – Nikita Gile
Have you ever read this scripture in Mathew 13 : 32 which says with regard to the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed, “………..which indeed is the least of all the seeds, but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”-NKJV. What questions does this stir up in your mind?
Are you aware that you are a seed that must be grown into a tree? That what you have deposited on the inside of you is far greater than you can imagine but you must be deliberate and intentional about growing it ? Are you aware that God’s gift to us is potential, Our gift to God is developing that potential. Do you not know that you have a purpose and you should not just sit there acting normal, you are not normal, you are extra-ordinary!!
I was awakened by a big bang on my bedroom window last year and a crazy friend with a big Afro and colorful flower in the hair was screaming,” put some clothes on and open the door!” please don’t judge me, clothes are too much work. I got up, opened the door and a group of friends shouted surprise!! It was my birthday……….i was growing older. Now as much as that freaked me out,it did not scare me as much as the realization that i was not intentionally investing in my personal growth, it was just accidentally happening and this had to change.
With that realization, I made a deliberate decision to grow even if it was the last thing i was going to do. I chose to take my enrollment at the most prestigious leadership institute in Uganda,(Harvest Institute) more seriously, i started spending time with people who added value to my life through coaching and mentorship, i attended masterminds with the most brilliant brains in the country, i joined a gang that sharpened me and set me up for success, i met people and built networks to carry me along my journey of growth and i began to see the tree sprout out of the seeds i was investing in. Here is the thing, prior to 2017, i had been growing, in age, in size, accidentally in my leadership and other areas in life, but 2017, i GREW! I intentionally set out to invest in my growth and it is paying off. Allow me to boast because even i ,can tell that i’m not the same woman i was a year ago, I mean, i am an author now, i study my bible more deliberately and i enjoy it, my leadership lid has increased by leaps and bounds, I connect better with people, i have an opinion that is valuable and i am not shy to share : all this has not been accidental, it was intentional.
one of the books that changed my life last year was John Maxwell’s 15 invaluable laws of growth. This book at some point discusses “arrivism” which is a disease many of us suffer from. We feel we have accomplished much or arrived and thus have no reason to go higher. It is said that “only a mediocre person is always at his best” I was sad when i read that forty two percent of college graduates never read a book after college, how depressing is that? We need to do better for ourselves. we need to invest in our growth. we need to become trees!! So this year as you come to the end of January, make a resolution:
- To Intentionally Grow
- To stretch
- To be Teachable
- To be willing to serve others
- To be grateful
- To be continually challenged
- To have a sense of direction
- To be consistent
You must become a forest, you must bear fruit. And as you do, remember , ” If you won’t be better tomorrow than you were today, then what do you need tomorrow for?” – Rabbi Nachman