GOD QUALIFIES ME

A few years ago I started writing for an online media platform and when making our writers profiles we had to choose a word to describe ourselves. My chosen word was ambitious. It seemed a fitting way to describe who I believed I was. I always prided myself in my relentless drive to get anything I wanted from life. Being open to great opportunities gave me a sense of identity.

During my second year of University after having a leadership role that meant a lot to me and being afforded great opportunities, I started to feel a sense of emptiness. It didn’t matter how much I did, who was recognising me or how many retweets my new ‘Thank God for x opportunity’ tweet got, the buzz it gave me was fleeting and soon felt meaningless.

Discontentment is an uncomfortable but necessary feeling at times because it highlights that something is not right. Gradually, I realised that my relentless drive morphed into a quest to qualify myself by what I did rather than who I was. I wanted to have a Twitter bio that exceeded the word limit; I wanted a list of accolades reeled off when I was introduced, I wanted to embody the quote ‘work so hard until you don’t have to introduce yourself’. However, as soon as I glimpsed the beginnings of that, the beginnings of what people call ‘success’, ‘excellence’, ‘being meaningful’ I found that it did not give me the satisfaction that I thought it would.

Although these feelings crept up on me, it left me feeling shaken and having a mini identity crisis. Outside of what I did and who I wanted to be, who was I? If I’m honest, I wasn’t too sure. In the same way that I defined myself as ambitious, I got used to other people defining me in that way. In any space I spent enough time in, I got used to being praised for being someone who was always making moves, so much so, that I became unsure if I truly possessed any characteristics outside of that.

It is hard to pinpoint when I began to see ambitious as an adequate descriptor of who I was. I held that marker so close to my heart that when someone complimented me about something outside of it I was always shocked. I did not think about my character. Was I kind? Was I forgiving? Was I patient? Did I possess the qualities mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? Did I even care, because when you’re ambitious doors will open for you regardless, right?

There is this brilliant quote that says ‘God will only take you as far as your character can sustain you’. And it really embodies the place I’m at in my life right now. The qualifiers I am looking to be defined by are purely scriptural and anchored by the ultimate qualifier which is to LOVE.

Although being driven is not negative it is so important to know why you are driven and what is driving you. Is it popularity, recognition, money, accolades or, as it was for me, a sense of significance? Is it FEAR? Maybe fear of insignificance?

In our generation there are a lot of pressures to hustle, to ‘BE THE CEO’, to be self-made, to work yourself so hard that generations are benefiting from your labour. However, it is so vital to remember that in everything you do, you ask yourself; what is driving me?

At a recent Christian retreat (called BATHOS by Christian organisation OGGM) I was told that God qualifies me and it was a word that drove me to tears. All this time I wanted to be qualified by achievements or grades but once I started to taste that, I realised it was flavourless because the position of my heart was so wrong. The truth is no achievement will ever give me true significance only God will, my significance is in God.

When I die I don’t want people to list off everything I did with no mention of the person that I was, the character I possessed, the way God’s light shined through me. The thought of that pushes me towards embodying 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 as mentioned above. There is no use in being driven, achieving feats and having no character to show for it. It’s an unsustainable model. You won’t make it to the top and if you do the fall will be mighty - and I aim to wear heels at the top so that would be a painful fall.

So to all my AMBITIOUS women ask yourself; what is driving me and am I qualifying myself by my achievements and not God?

SAY THIS TO YOURSELF: My significance is not in what I do rather my significance is in Christ. GOD QUALIFIES ME.

Stay blessed and beautiful x

#itunuspeaks