What you are about to read, I authorize you to teach. What you are about to hear, you are authorized to share. If this information was as clear to me years ago, as it is today, I will be far away from where I am today. If you read this frequently enough, it will settle in. I will try as much as possible to capture this in simple language, the type that makes it easy to understand and difficult to misunderstand. This information is so crucial, so pivotal to success, it’s so so important, I cannot stress the importance of it enough. If your quest is for wealth, this is important. If it’s for honor, fame or greatness, this is critical. If your quest is for the attainment of significance, relevance or influence, then is is your starting point. I have also deliberately decided to make it short, not because it can’t be longer, but so you don’t get bored. I will break it down into series and will shed more light as we progress. If you can understand this, you are made! Welcome with me, into possibilities.
The very first of these series I’ll like to share with you is the fact, that man is a thinking thing. That might sound basic, familiar or strange to you depending on your background, but forget your personal history for now. Man is not the body that you see or anything else on it, that’s merely the packaging. Man is thought! in fact, ageless wisdom has a verse that says “As a man thinks in his heart (his core), so is he”. This means whatever shapes your thoughts defines you. Whatever frame of reference you see the world through, whatever paradigm you operate with, whatever perspectives you hold defines your life! Your behavior, actions, beliefs, and reality have their source in one thing – the frames your thoughts are in. To make it abundantly clear, you are and live and a function of your paradigm.
Don’t assume this is all theory, this is truth that if you understand will literally set you free. The most important thing in the life of a mortal is the revelation he receives that alters his paradigm, that shapes his thinking. Once your thinking wears a new frame, be it tinted or colored, everything else in their surroundings becomes a function of that frame. Our thoughts are our realities. Once you can accept to understand a new way of thinking, your behaviors and actions are without choices, they will level up to the new way of thinking. It is not possible to struggle to work out a revelation, people who talk like that have no revelation. It is impossible to try to push yourself to live in line with what you have found is a new reality, that’s the language of people who still don’t see clearly. The day your paradigm shifts is the day your behavior shifts! You cannot grasp or understand and cast off restraint. This is the reason why wisdom is the principal thing, and why above all things, you must get understanding. Many times we know what to do, we know how to do it, we even have an idea of why we need to do it, but we never do it. The reason why we never do what we know is right to do, is because we do not understand! Our paradigm has not shifted, our thinking does not yet wear a new frame. The moment internal change happens, external change is without a choice.
Let me quickly illustrate with a personal story.
When I was growing up, I discovered God’s love, and was led to study my bible and pray. I began to read a lot of the bible and had a colorful florescent pen with which I marked out God’s promises. I used one of he bibles for so long, that even now as I write I can visualize the cover of the bible, and the particular spot that some of my favorite verses were. I recollect vividly that I had to write a small essay to a group called Swords international to win that Bible. The cover was yellow and the leaves brown. There was a particular verse that caught my attention early –
“And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them” – Deut 28:13
For a long time in my life, the paradigm with which I read this statement was with the paradigm of promise. As far as I was concerned, God had made a promise and it was documented. He the Lord will make me, period! That wasn’t my responsibility, that was God’s responsibility. I believed it and I confessed it, but the more I did, the more my positions showed clearly that either the head was quite big and it accommodated some of the chest too, or there was something wrong. The behaviors I manifested were not premeditated, they flowed naturally from the paradigm of promise, until one day!. One day a shift came in my thinking, and I saw from a different paradigm. My paradigm changed from promise to an instruction issued by my commanding officer. I migrated from promise to commandment, and immediately my behavior changed. Rather than looking at God as the responsible one, and the person I can ask “Why”” when I failed, I started seeing differently that I was responsible for ensuring that the words of my commanding officer are not cheapened by my lackadaisical attitude. To make those words come to pass in my life became my responsibility and I worked hard without extra motivation to ensure that I don’t fail or fall the hands of the one who defined that as my irrevocable reality. One moment I occupied the weak position of powerlessness and at another moment I was in charge. All that changed, was the thinking!
It’s all about the coloration of the lens that we wear. The most important thing is to have a perspective that is pure and above all. To think the thoughts of God and to be led into his ways. Wisdom is the natural behavior that emanates from the paradigm of a long term perspective. The moment you can think about a few years ahead, whatever you do will be termed as wisdom. Wisdom is simply how you behave when you have insight into the future and exercise a long term view.
If you must remember something today… remember that your life is simply a function of your thoughts. Whatever you want, once you are able to think like it and get yourself to a point of understanding, it will naturally enforce the right habits and behavior. The first step in any development is to get the essence of the mind of who you want to emulate, download it, and it will execute to type.
Action follows understanding, if you want to do things with ease, ensure you have understanding, the actions will propel themselves.
