Creating
Your
Destiny
Table
Of
Contents

Who is in Control

When I was a child I remember a man standing in church telling us all that God had no hands, but our hands and no feet, but our feet. It seemed that God was lost without us.

Now there's a belief that will give you a head-trip! One mistake and the kingdom crumbles. Can there be a belief more conducive to a Messianic complex where the weight of the Kingdom of God rests on your shoulders? Good news: you can relax. The Kingdom is on His shoulders.

One of things about Jesus that has always fascinated me is that you will never read of a time when He was attacked or falsely accused that He became offended and got His feelings hurt. He would defend His Father's reputation, but never His own. He really didn't think all that much about Himself because that wasn't what He was all about. What He was all about was His love for His Father and His dedication to His mission.

Can you imagine Jesus going on and on about how some Rabbi had said such mean things about Him? Can you imagine Jesus getting all bent out of shape about being ignored at a party? Even when those healed didn't show sufficient gratitude, the issue wasn't about Him but concern for the character flaw that had been revealed in the one He had ministered to.

For your spiritual health's sake, I heartily recommend a good laugh at yourself once a week. If you think you may be worried about your image, go to some really swank restaurant and, at the top of your lungs, sing a rousing chorus of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Gently Down the Stream". That'll cure what ails you.

Personal History

When I was in High School I took a personality profile test that told me I was an introvert that should shy away from any endeavor that required standing in front of others. This so-called fact about who I was came back to my mind like a storm through a valley when, in my first year of college, I was about to step inside a room to sing before the head of the music school and three other professors. As I had freely chosen to major in voice, I didn't think they would cut me any slack if I told them I was handicapped by a severe case of shyness and introversion.

As I stood outside the room I paced back and forth. All of the affirmations I could think of were doing me no good. It didn't seem to matter how loudly I said to myself, "I am a confident, competent singer who will remember all four languages I am to sing," a louder voice replied, "You are about to lay an egg." Out of the blue a thought occurred to me that, maybe, I could pretend to be someone else.

When my name was called, I "became" an academy-winning actor who was about to step before the cameras. I could hear the symphony swelling and myself saying, "Show time!" I walked into the room, nailed the performance and earned an "A." I also learned that I didn't have to be bound by who I was yesterday.

Succeed where you've failed in the past!

One of the things you will learn on your quest is that progress often requires you to drop your personal history, in so far as it gets in the way of your becoming whom you need to be in order to move on. It doesn't matter that you have never-been-this-way until now: progress requires you do so.

Up until now, you have learned certain behaviors that, in your mind, have helped you to live your life…or at least to survive it! Good for you. But you will need to unlearn some behaviors and learn new ones if you are to truly live life as it was intended. To the degree you allow yourself to hide behind your past by saying, "That just isn't me," is the degree your experience of life will be inhibited.

Be Willing To Start Over

What if you had amnesia? What if you had to build a personality and patterns of behavior from a blank slate? Who would you be? What behaviors would you adopt? Forget who you were. Who do you want to be today? Don't be restricted by past beliefs or behaviors: adopt the belief that you can become anyone you want to become, do anything you want to do.

I know. There may be some environmental or physiological restrictions. But allow that reality to reveal itself to you. Don't simply decide it is true in your case before you even seek to make the attempt.

Few things can trip us up in our quest more than the desire to maintain the identity we have built over the years. Forget it. Allow the needs of the quest to reshape you. Allow the vision of who you wish to become to guide you. And don't listen to those voices--yours or someone else's--that try to pull you back to the old you, the old way of behaving. That person died.

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Read more articles on this subject:

Ground Rules

Finding Gifts in Your Worst Weaknesses

Written by
Dr. Monte E. Wilson, III
Andrea Higham, Editor
© 2004 God On The Net, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced without permission.