Moving towards "What Moves You"

What Moves You?

We move out of old houses, old neighborhoods, old territories and move into new houses, new neighborhoods, and new territories time after time. Change is inevitable. We don't like change and sometimes we don't anticipate it. We fight change most times. Others move into new relationships, implement new business ideas and form new alliances.

  Anatole France said it better:

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. 

The word move has various meanings, we shall focus on just these two:

• Take action
• Provoke a strong feeling, esp. of sorrow or sympathy, anger

Anybody can either be frustrated or fascinated by what they see in their daily lives; only a few take action or are provoked to compassion. Mostly compassion ultimately compels one into taking action.

• How to be moved

A 'seeing eye' will sometimes not see, and a 'hearing ear' does not always hear.

To see, or hear -- you must feel after you see and again listen to what you hear.

Many people walk past beggars on the street daily without as much as a look. I am guilty of that a number of times. Only a few notice the despair on their faces, even fewer care to ask why they are on the streets, and only a select few decide to buy them a decent meal.

Is it the loss of hope, the orphans, the abortions, poverty of the mind, poor living conditions, wasted resources, the lack of morals, youth wasting their lives, disintegrating family values, faulty leadership, propaganda in the media... what cry captures your listening ear, what situation gets you really angry and provokes you to action?

• How to move towards what moves you

It is not about you
You being born was not the grandest event on earth. It is what you do for others that makes your life really count.

Forget yourself

No one who is selfish ever went out of his way to help others. You have to be selfless. Think about others more than you do about yourself.

What do you have in your hand?

Start with what is in your hand. You don't need millions of money to give a smile or to speak out against the ills in the society.

Is there any building that starts with the roof being put up first? You start with the foundation and gradually add the supports.

For anything to succeed, you start small; not big. Mother Theresa believed that sometimes we feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

Most times we see the vast ocean, we don't remember the drops of water that make up the ocean. Just as there are no small drops, no contribution is small. Start with what you have and grow from there.

You might fail

The key word here is might. Until you start, you will not know if the probability has a chance to materialize. When you do fail, it will be after you have started and that will not be a failure. Choose to fail forward and pick up the lessons as you go.

Don't listen to dissenting voices

"You can't." "Others have tried and failed."

When dissenting voices speak against you, ask yourself two questions

• Do they feel as strongly as you do?
• Have any of them taken action yet?

Most times people criticize what they don't understand.

Learn from others

There are those who have tried and failed forward. Borrow their wisdom. Connect with them through books, seminars, one on one. Do whatever it takes to learn the rules of the trade and then follow them.

Leo Tolstoy said

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

The truth is moving has an action-reaction effect. The decision to move will require you to stretch - the change to be effected without must start from within - and it is a process. A process of forming a character able to effect the change you desire.

If you don't yet know what moves you, you owe it to yourself to make it a lifelong pursuit, until you do. You won't come up empty.

If you know what moves you, then start moving towards what moves you.

If you have already started moving, keep moving and share your insights with others.

Do you know what moves you? How else can we move "towards what moves us." Please share your views in the comment section below.

photo credit: NazareneMissionsInternational via photo pin cc

Mark 8

New Living Translation (NLT)

¹⁸ ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’

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Pure Gold Character

Walking even with no end in sight

In every journey there is a path to follow. Some choose to travel through the less traveled on road ~ a road as Robert Frost said:

"I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

I believe every person's journey is unique; but the choices each of are faced with along the journey are the same. To some the journey is treacherous, we are weary from the baggage, the valleys seem to go deeper ~ the real choice is whether we will give up and quit or we will keep moving forward.

I know of a young boy Joseph in the Bible. He was the darling of his father Jacob. For this reason his brothers despised him. He had a crazy dream about his 11 brothers bowing before him. He shared the dream with them probably not grasping it's meaning at the time. Now that fueled his brothers' hatred towards him the more. They even plotted to kill him. Luckily Reuben the eldest saved him and Judah another brother suggested they sell him as a slave to some foreigners. Fast forward after serving as a slave and a prison sentence albeit on a false accusation; he became Governor of Egypt and true to His dreams his brothers bowed before him.

Joseph's journey to Governor inspires me to know that the dreams I have will see the light of day. What I don't understand or have trouble with is the process of it.

The valleys don't seem to make sense, the storms seem too strong to bear.

In life, your character is formed during the tests and trials. The process to obtain pure gold involves melting of scrap gold in a furnace to separate the impurities from the gold. Just the same way you will have to go through a furnace of sorts, a fire, a dark alley ~ to obtain a character that is unshakeable when your dreams become reality.

Most times we are not patient during the purifying process, we push for the dream to become reality. We wish to bypass the process and make it unscathed. That is a pipe dream. Be willing to endure. Be willing to learn. Be teachable. Allow yourself to be moulded.

I always wonder, do you ever hear good stories without struggle, without enduring pain, without overcoming of the suffering. Mandela had to endure 27 years of political imprisonment before he became president, before his dream of independent South Africa was realized. Just like you, I love the part of the story about gaining independence, but the story would not be complete without the imprisonment.

Helen Keller said, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

If you won't loose heart during the process, you will surely see the reality of your dream. Keep Moving Forward. You need to develop 'larger feet' to fit into the vision you have.

God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. Oswald Chambers

When you bypass the furnace, you will get through to the other side but the joy won't last. You will realize that you shortchanged yourself. You got the raw deal. Keep the faith, choose to endure and don't let the want for ease or the hurry, steal the joy that awaits you. Be patient and let a pure gold character be developed. In the end, you will be grateful that you waited.

1 Samuel 7

New Living Translation (NLT)

¹² Samuel then took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah.He named it Ebenezer (which means “the stone of help”), for he said, “Up to this point the Lord has helped us!”

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