Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 06, Issue 05: Get in on the Good Life

Why is it not enough to read a good book once? We certainly can read through the Bible in a year. Why do we have to read the same text year after year, over and over again? We read over and over again to master the material enough to be transformed by it.

Knowing faith comes by hearing, Jesus spent hours teaching and dialoguing with his disciples. He taught his students success principles derived from spiritual laws in order to build their faith in their ability to make a difference in the world. He knew it would take constant exposure to the light to finally turn on in them.

If our success hinges on our thoughts and words, then we must fill our minds with great thoughts. To have great thoughts we must plant and nurture them from what we read and hear.

It’s not enough to hear something important only once or a few times. Like with Jesus’ students, it will take constant exposure to light for it to finally turn on in us. We must keep reading and hearing success principles to fill our minds with successful thoughts.

In the voyage from Egypt to the Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb stood out in their entire generation. Their brethren died in the wilderness while they lived to take possession of the land alongside a younger generation. The secret to their success was adherence to God’s specific instructions to Joshua about how to secure success, prosperity and victory over every adversary.

God instructed Joshua to meditate on his Word day and night so that it would fill his heart, mind and mouth. Then he commanded him to be strong and courageous.

Right from the onset, God made it a priority to address the issue of Joshua’s mind. No other instructions or strategies took precedence over what occupied Joshua’s thoughts.

Until Joshua’s mind and mouth only thought and spoke God’s word, Joshua could not have any hope of being strong and of good courage.

What’s preoccupying your thoughts? Is it making you successful? Don’t be among those who miss out on success for lack of knowledge. Saturate your mind with great substance. Be in the know, unlock God’s secrets for you, and get in on the good life.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 06, Issue 04: Dare to Imagine

How do I look ahead if my targets for 2015 turned out to be a pipe dream? By changing the frequency of your thoughts and words. What are your thoughts chasing after, what are your words gathering to you?

It’s one thing to set goals for the New Year; it’s another thing to realize them. Have you ever wondered what makes some people successful and others not so successful? We limit ourselves by our limited thoughts. We talk of what we want to achieve for one moment, and then spend the next half hour talking about the happenings in life that are keeping us from getting there.

Your outer world is a result of your inner world. We sabotage our success by our own negative thoughts and words.

Jabez did not ask God for more property or greater wealth but to enlarge his intellectual territory, his mental capacity regarding his worth. He asked God to give him a greater capacity for conceiving what he might accomplish on God’s behalf. He prayed that God would give him a greater ability to think big.

Our thoughts determine our destiny. Think about your future regarding what you really want to accomplish and on behalf of whom. Think possibility thoughts. The possibilities in our lives change when our perspectives change.

We were made for more than ordinary lives. We were made to thrive. We have to see ourselves doing more, gaining more, and being more. To do this, we must think beyond where we are.

When I look around me, I see occurrences that are way beyond what I could possibly make happen. They exist because I called them forth with my thoughts and words. Understand that your feet will never take you where your mind has never been.

Like Jabez, we ask God to enlarge our capacity for thinking, to give us bigger thoughts, to see what other people cannot see and hear what other people cannot hear. It is God’s desire that we succeed and prosper. He designed us to create success and abundance in every sphere we influence.

God wants us to live a life of abundance. Abundance is not materialism or consumerism. It is the fact that it is God’s will for us to live without lack – to provide us with every possible thing to successfully fulfill our purpose and maximize our potential.

Your target for 2016, if you can see it in your mind first, you can achieve it. Deliberately envision your life with whatever you aspire to achieve. Fill your mind with great thoughts. Flood your atmosphere with possibility with every word you speak. Dare to imagine!  Dare to go in the direction of your dreams.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 06, Issue 03: Look Ahead

A story is told of Mephibosheth who was born in royalty but circumstances in life dealt him a hard blow that moved him from state house to slum house, from plenty to poverty, and from healthy to crippled. His opinion of himself was that he is a dead dog.

Though he initially saw himself as a dead dog, Mephibosheth took a bold step and accepted the King David’s invitation to live with the King in Jerusalem.

When Mephibosheth started eating at the King’s table, his crippled feet were covered under the table. Don’t let your deficiencies keep you from moving forward. God’s grace is sufficient for us.

Mephibosheth’s feet were not healed, but they were covered. Don’t wait for your situation to change to move in faith to your destiny. The Lord never removes all the obstacles but his grace is sufficient. It may not be comfortable, but take a leap of faith and move to the palace.

Look ahead. Refuse to take no for an answer. See yourself as God sees you. Don’t settle for the successes of 2015. Reach out for the more that God has in store for you in 2016.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 06, Issue 02: Look Back to Move Forward

We can easily move from one project to another without pausing to reflect and give thanks. Look back and thank God.

We have just entered into a wide screen of 2016 with a small mirror of reflection to help us look back at 2015 and before. We don’t want to hang on to the victories of the past. We set our eyes on new successes for the new year. Even so, look back and be grateful. Looking back at the things God has done for us will propel us with gratefulness in 2016.

Looking back helps us remember. We don’t want to forget the benefits God has bestowed upon us. Gratitude requires an appreciation of the positive elements of your situation. Perhaps some things are not working well in your life, but there’s no point dwelling on the negatives. Focus on what God is doing and be thankful. In any set of circumstances, there’s something going for you for which you can be grateful.

Look back and thank God but forget the successes of the past. There’s more to set your eyes on in the new year, more to accomplish. A story is told a young man who used the jawbone of a donkey to kill one thousand philistines. When he finished the mission, Samson threw the jawbone away and moved on to his next conquests.

Although he had great victory with the jawbone, Samson realized it was the power of God that gave him success, not the jawbone. What jawbones do you need to throw away? They may have worked in 2015 but they are not the source of your success. Samson’s destiny was not to kill donkeys. His destiny was to kill the philistines. Because he threw away the jawbone, he fulfilled his destiny.

Discard the jawbones of 2015, those things that worked so successfully in 2015 that you thought that’s all God can do. God will give you new energy, new methods, new strategies, new successes in 2016.

Don’t be stuck with the first breakthrough. Sometimes we hang on too long to the successes of yesterday that we get trapped in one place. Success can become a prison when we convert it to a monument.

The new year is an open door of opportunity. Let not your testimonies be the same year in, year out. Look back to remember the goodness of the Lord but don’t dwell there. Look back to move forward. God is always doing a new thing. Don’t be stuck in the new things of yesterday and miss out on today’s opportunities.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 06, Issue 01: Begin with Thanks

It’s only a few days into 2016, a time when many people are preoccupied with New Year resolutions: setting goals and targets, making lists of things to accomplish this year.

How about starting on a note of thanksgiving? While making my gratitude list for 2015 several weeks ago, I was amazed at how incredibly the Lord had blessed me. Get your list out if you haven’t already. I bet you would be just as blown away as I was. Break it down into the categories of the wheel of life like you do with your goals. You will be amazed how blessed you were in each wheel.

We make plans, set targets, but God is never limited by our targets. Reflect upon the blessings you walked into that were not even on your list of achievements for 2015. Things your mind had not even fathomed, beyond your wildest dreams.

Count your blessings, name them one by one. We have thousands of reasons to bless the Lord. Command your soul to bless God. Let’s bless Him with all that is within us at the start of the year and beyond. Thank God for his goodness. Ponder over all the good things that happened, started or continued in your life in 2015. Thank God for his favour, for his mercies and kindness towards you, for his wonders and for his grace. Thank God for Christmas, for life, for his provision and protection, for his guidance and direction. Thank God for surpassing your expectations, for going before you and ordering your steps, for making a way for you, for opening doors you never imagined possible, for qualifying you for things beyond your reach, for taking you places you never dreamed.

All the benefits of life are because of the goodness of God. Imagine what would have happened if the Lord had not been on your side in 2015. Because of his goodness towards you, you were not a victim of a fatal accident, terror attack, health emergency, bankruptcy, divorce, eviction, grave bereavement from premature death of a close loved one, hopeless retrenchment, etc.

You could be thinking, “Some of these terrible things happened to me. I got sick, I lost my job, I was dumped, or worse.” Beyond the tears, give thanks to the Lord. Disappointed as you might be, thank God, because He has better things in store for you. In spite of the challenges you faced in 2015, God saw you through them, and He is still looking out for you. Praise your way through the storms of life. Lift up your worship through every trial, every situation.

Three times in a year the children of Israel were to appear before God corporately: the Passover, the feast of Pentecost and the feast of Tabernacle. During the last two feasts, they were to appear in celebration before the Lord, giving thanks for His goodness. As long as they honoured God with thanksgiving, He was going to continue blessing them.

We are commanded to give thanks. Don’t be preoccupied with targets. Pause and give thanks to God. Do not be blinded by your needs and lists. Learn to celebrate and thank God. Live a life of gratitude. Don’t take God’s blessings for granted. Give thanks continually. Let thanksgiving be your way of life.

Lillian Chebosi