WAKE UP: IT’S TIME TO PREPARE

Happy New Year everyone. We are in 2021, the year of blessings and favour. This year is the year we rise. Someone might say “How can a year be good if there’s still a pandemic”. Listen, the pandemic should not stop your blessing. The pandemic should not stop your growth. The pandemic can be there and you can still succeed. This is our year people. A year to step forward and take over. This year will be a good year, Amen. So these three weeks ahead of us, we will be looking at a series titled “Wake up”. We stepped into this year with a fresh new slate, so now we need to be awake to see what God has in store for us.

Wake up: It’s time to prepare.

In everything you do, you need to know something about it before you can do it. Doctors go to school to learn before they become doctors. You can’t just wake up and say I’m a doctor then someone will give you a job in the hospital. You need to know what you’re doing before you can do it. Being the best in what you do is amazing. A nurse can’t tell a surgeon their surgery is wrong and talk the surgeon through it. Why? Because the surgeon knows why he’s doing. He went to school to learn that. To learn the types of equipment to use, the way to cut the body, to take things out or to insert things. They are knowledgeable in this field. If they didn’t attend university and everything, their knowledge will be limited. They went to school to “prepare”. Preparation is essential. But when we think of preparation, most times we look at just the educational sides of it. But today, I’m here to tell you that everything you do, educational wise or not is important.

I’ll use David as an example. David was a shepherd before he became a king. He went through stages of preparation to get to that position. To kill Goliath, who thought that tending to sheep and goats will benefit him? David said in 1 Samuel 17:34-37: “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God!” He said, “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats”. By saying this he made them know that he has the skills to do this. By taking care of the sheep and goats, he has learned a lot from there. You think just singing in church is just singing in church but God is preparing you to sing globally. No wait, you think being good at drawing dresses in your book is useless but you don’t know that that could be preparing you to become a fashion designer. You’re good at baking but you don’t know all the baking you’re doing is a preparation leading you to become the best cake maker in the UK. Listen to me, you’re good with kids you think it’s nothing, listen it is something. God is properly preparing you to become an owner of a nursery school. I think you need to understand that even if you’re just good at giving advice to people God may be preparing you to become a counsellor, a therapist, an advisor. You need to see the vision. You are good at taking pictures but you just take pictures and think “No this isn’t that deep”. Today I’m telling you it is deep. Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly. Do it with the thought that this drawing, this decorative side of me, this cooking side of me, this dancing talent I have, this sewing talent I have, this looking for clothes talent I have is my preparation period.

Since year four or five I’ve always had a thing for writing. I even joined a group called creative thinker in Ghana, where we just write stories and things. I never thought too deep into it. From the age of twelve, I started writing proper stories. I used to write stories in a book and passed it round to people who wanted to read it. Once again, I didn’t think too deep into it. When I came to this county nearly seven years ago, the first book I asked my mum to buy for me, I wrote a story in it. Then I discovered I could do it on my phone so I downloaded an app specifically for that. When I’m writing my stories, I am very passionate about them. I love to write but I didn’t know why. Any sort of writing gets me excited. When it comes to birthdays, my family and friends can tell you that the length of their paragraph is like a storybook. 2020 is the year I recognised that writing is a talent. I did not even know writing, yes “writing” can be a talent. It now made sense that all these years that I’ve been writing, I was preparing for this blog and something bigger. So today, all I’m saying is if you like recording yourself and posting it, do it. If you like doing makeup on others, do it. If you like designing stuff, do it. David tending to sheep and goats gave him the skills to kill the giant. What will your story be?

We all are given a gift. Some people’s gifts are noticeable some are not. If you let shyness and anxiety take control, there is no way you could achieve it. A friend once told me “if you don’t do it, God will send someone else to do it”. This doesn’t mean you’re not special and you can always be replaced. This just means don’t let anyone take your place. I’m telling you this to motivate you. You should say “Yes it should be me”. Wake up and prepare. Shine some light on what you’re good at and do it to the best of your ability. Yes, it may look irrelevant right now but in the future, you’ll look back and say “God was truly preparing me because if I didn’t do that, my knowledge or skills on this would be little, in that case I would fail at it”. Wake up today and prepare for the future. May God bless you abundantly.

Prayer: Our Heavenly Father we thank you for bringing us into this new year. God as we are starting this series of awareness, bless us, speak to us, motivate us. Prepare us for bigger and better things. Open our eyes to see that what we’re doing isn’t for nothing. From the littlest things to the bigger things. God, we also ask you to please show us our talents, so we can start working on it now. We thank you Lord, in Jesus name we pray, Amen.