Treat me like I treat me

 I was once asked the one thing I live by or phrase I say regularly. Although, the common phrase I always say is "Life is not Hard". But that day, the answer I gave was, "Do unto others what you'd like them to do to you". In secondary school, I hated Economics but one thing that I learnt from the Subject that I can never forget is this "Human Beings are Insatiable". Humans are never and can never be satisfied. Sadly for most of my life, I did a lot of things in the name of trying to please people. Growing up as a Pastor's child, there's always one complaint or comment or the other about my appearance or the things I did. 

My mum had explained to me once that couldn't wear trousers because it would have been setting the wrong example for other young people in the church because the church had certain policies about dressing, which thankfully, now have become, let me say, more relaxed. Anyways, Issues like this made me very self conscious when it came to my dressing and appearance in general. It took a very long while for me to become more confident in my appearance. One thing that did help me though was the realisation of who I was in Christ. For better context, see my post about "who are you". Understanding my identity as a child of God opened my eyes and heart to the fact that I didn't need to please anyone. My life, my walk with God was just that, Me with God. No one else involved. What the rest of the world thought or had to say about what did or how did it or what I wore or the way I looked didn't matter as long as God approved. If God didn't approve of it, I don't care. 

Moving and living with that understanding helped me take care of myself better. There were times in the past I pretended to be things or to be at certain levels because I believed that, that was how I should have been because, "I'm a Pastor's Child". I mean, yeah, I got filled with the Holy Spirit at the age of 12 with the evidence of speaking in tongues. But there were a lot of things I didn't know or understand yet. All I was required to do was to take my time to study the word of God to know and understand. Then I'd see other Pastor's children do bigger things than I can do and think "If this person is already at this level spiritually, I should be  there too, but I'm not and they probably expect me to be there so lets just fake it". Fake it till you make it right? 

Understanding who I was in Christ helped me understand where I was spiritually, where I was supposed to be and what I needed to do to get to where I'm supposed to be. One of the things the Holy Spirit gave me as a guide for my life, was that I needed to understand how to take care off myself the way I wanted others to care for and treat me. 

… and, Thou shall Love thy neighbour as thyself

                Matthew 19:19b KJV

The above passage states that you love others the way you love yourself. This means that you need to love yourself first. The way I treat myself is the way I'll treat people round me. And if the principle of reaping and sowing applies, it means, the way I treat others, is the way I'll be treated by them. So I learnt a few lessons from this and I'll state them with practical scenarios. First, one was my Spiritual growth. I wanted people to see me as this mature, grown and spirit filled Child of a Pastor (not God) so bad that instead of putting in the work to gradually get there, I began to pretend. So I corrected that by actually putting in the time and energy to grow spiritually, to the point that even me, I could see all those things I wanted so badly to happen, happening with ease in my life. 

Number two was my friends. For the longest time I struggled when it came to maintaining friendships with people to the point that I thought something was wrong with me (I've shared this backstory in a previous post, please check it out "Value of Friendships"). I remember the Holy Spirit telling me this during a program. I had been so envious and jealous of people who got a lot of gifts for their birthdays and were always posting them around and the Holy Spirit said to me that day, "You start giving gifts and see if you won't get some too". So like play I started, but this required me to be intentional about making my relationships with my friends to even know what they liked. I used to tell people I was the worst gift giver, I still think I am though, but I know I'm definitely getting better. 

I'll stop at lesson number three. The third lesson being my general Interaction with people. Up until recently, It had skipped my mind that this actually meant bearing the fruit of the Spirit. You see that statement that I always make, "Life is not hard", I'll say it again, Life is not Hard. We  are the ones that make it hard for ourselves. A lot of stress in this life can be avoided by simply showing love to people regardless of who they are, what they've done or what they might be doing. Practically, some of the things I do, which if I'm being completely honest, drains my self control, is to not give the expected reaction or satisfaction. Some people just want your reaction. They just want to spite you. But you're always to eager to show them what you're made off or that you're not a fool. But you see, I'd rather be a fool than let one human being from God knows where, make me loose my chance at making Heaven. 

Yeah so, I'mma stop here, because If I continue writing, I might as well just write a book on this. So in conclusion, One of my favourite Whitney Houston song says, 

    The Greatest Love of all 

    Its easy to achieve

    Learning to love yourself 

    Is the greatest love of all

Treat yourself the way you want to be treated, and you'll be able to love your neighbour as you love yourself. 

And remember, 

You are Light! You must Shine!

Cheers