FORGET THE HURT AND MOVE ON!!!!!!!

 I welcome everyone to the last quarter of this year 2013, it is with great pleasure i write this little piece of mine with inspiration gotten from you. Well, i have been looking deep into the past and found out that constant digging of our past mistakes can bring about fear, tears and stagnation to our life. It debars our 

progress and makes us unnecessarily aggressive.  Therefore, it would be wise to forget the past and move on, but make sure you try all your best possible to move on. Let us read together the meaning of this proverb ''A chicken that keeps scratching the dung-hill will soon find the mother’s thigh bones''

 

Koklo ka koli dzi, eno fe atafu nue wokena do. (Ewe)
Un poussin qui fouille trop les tas des déchets (d'une poubelle) finit par rencontrer les os de sa mère. (French)
Kifaranga kichokoracho mlima (lundo) wa uchafu hukutana na mifupa ya mamae. (Swahili)

A chicken that keeps scratching the dung-hill will soon find the mother’s thigh bones. (English)

Background, Explanation, Meaning and Everyday UseThere are very few Ewe proverbs that deal specifically with the concept of reconciliation and peace. However this Ewe proverb alludes to the context or environment necessary for reconciliation and peace. Chickens are fond of scratching the dung hill for food. This heap of garbage contains all kinds of things including chicken bones. A chicken that keeps digging deep into the dunghill sometimes comes across old bones and particularly chicken bones that may be more common in the garbage. This alludes to the fact that a person who keeps following bad issues may end up finding some painful reminders of their own destiny. The thigh bone of the mother hen is a reminder of the painful destiny of a person who keeps following bad issues from the past. Sometimes it is better to leave certain painful things to the past and look for better things in the future. One moral lesson is that if you want peace avoid digging too much into the bad and painful incidences of the past; they may only bring tears and sorrow. While selective understanding of past mistakes regarding war, conflict and division can be a learning experience, it is unhealthy to dwell too much on the past.

Biblical Parallels"But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt" (Genesis 19:26).
"But Jesus said to him, 'Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead'" (Matthew 8:22).

Contemporary Use and Religious Application
This Ewe proverb can apply to many situations in different countries today where conflicts seem to have a never-ending momentum, for example, in Kenya after the December, 2007 presidential elections in which the confusion in announcing the results led to chaos, death and the destruction of a lot of property in some parts of the country. It is now debated whether there should be a blanket amnesty to all the people involved or whether these people should be prosecuted and punished. Those who are insisting on prosecution and punishment may have the assumption that their opponents may be the victims. Paradoxically like the proverbial chicken if they keep scratching the dunghill of this issue too much they may become victims of it themselves. Some issues are just too painful to be mentioned repeatedly. Revisiting them may only bring sorrow, anger and tears. Sometimes it is better to leave these issues in the past. Learn lessons from them, yes, but then move on into the future.

Anger is perhaps one of the most powerful emotions humans feel. It can be all consuming, distracting us from daily tasks and preventing us from forgiving people who have hurt us and moving forward. Anger certainly has its place in life and is a normal reaction to a frustrating or upsetting event. But holding on to anger long after the hurt has happened can have profoundly damaging effects. Anger at someone who has hurt you doesn't hurt them; it hurts you. Moreover, it interferes with your ability to have good relationships with people, including the person who has hurt you. 

Here is how you can get over anger and move forward with forgiveness:

Accept the Fact That You are Hurt
And so, to move beyond your pain, I believe the first step is to accept the fact that you are hurt. The truth is that many of us never get past this first step, for many reasons, such as denial (“I’m not hurt”), guilt (“I shouldn’t be feeling this way, I’m a Christian”), shock, anger and rejection (“I can't believe they did that to me”). Ultimately, until you accept the facts, you will become stuck in a loop. By the way, it is NOT a sin to feel hurt! What becomes sin is our fleshy reactions e.g. bitterness, malice, unforgiveness, resentment, etc. Even God recognised that we will be hurt and that’s why there are scriptures referring to the ‘broken’ or the ‘wounded’ heart. The Bible also tells us of the times God was hurt by the antics of His beloved people and so was Jesus. So you are not alone!
  Recognize Anger as a Mask For Other Emotions
Anger is typically a result of some other emotion- fear, sadness, or frustration, for example, and oftentimes when we're hurt, being angry feels safer than feeling the real emotion underlying the anger. If you're working to move past anger, however, it's important to identify the emotion that is beneath your anger. It is only through working through that emotion that you can begin to conquer your anger. If you are angry with someone with whom you still have a relationship, talk to them about the emotion that caused your anger. Rather than focusing on how angry you are, focus on how scared or hurt you feel. Exposing your vulnerability is more likely to yield a positive result from the other person, and allowing yourself to feel vulnerable can help you to begin to work past your anger.

Recognize That Anger Will Not Change Anything
In some cases, people work to maintain anger because they believe it will make them stronger. A scorned spouse, for example, may hold onto his anger because he believes it will prevent him from being blind to his spouse's faults in the future. But the truth is that you can be strong even without anger and you can learn from past experiences without focusing on anger. The anger itself is not going to change anything. It's important for you to acknowledge to yourself that anger only harms you. It prevents you from being able to relax, from moving forward with your life, and from having healthy relationships. Once you begin to accept this fact, it will make little sense for you to hold on to anger at another person when that anger is only harming you!

Don't Beat Yourself Up
Though anger is a destructive emotion when we hold onto it and allow it to interfere in our lives, it is also an unavoidable reaction to a troubling event. Don't beat yourself up for feeling angry. Instead, tell yourself that anger was a natural reaction but now you're ready to move past it. If you get caught up in beating yourself up, it will be even harder to let go of your anger.

Practice Empathy
We have all done things in life we regret, and we've all done things to cause another person to be angry. Try placing yourself in the shoes of the person who has harmed you and focus on seeing them as a person just like you who made a terrible mistake. By humanizing the other person and seeing their weaknesses, you're more likely to be able to move forward and forgive.

Talk Through Things
Talking through feelings is one of the most powerful things you can do to make them go away. The first Person ought to be God. It is amazing how we bring to God our mountain-like requests but omit the seemingly little ones which end up having an adverse impact on us. So, tell God about it (as if He does not already know!). For healing takes place when we bring our feelings before Him. In His presence, you will get comfort, clarity, and direction from a loving Father. God also places people in our lives to comfort us (2 Corinthians 1:3-5). So, find godly, supportive, wise and trustworthy people to speak to. Notice all the criteria? The person(s) you confide in must fit the bill! Let God order your steps on this matter. Allow yourself a day to ventilate, talk to a friend, punch a pillow, and express all of the anger you need to. Bottling up anger will only make it come out more forcefully later, so focus on getting it all out in a way that does not harm others. And then, after you've had a chance to get your anger out, resolve to move past it.
Working through anger can be a challenge, but anger can destroy lives. Remind yourself that anger cannot change the past; it can only make the future more difficult, and over time you will be able to move past your anger.

Take Action
This depends on the issue at hand. However part of your action plan will include forgiveness i.e. releasing the person(s) from your heart. This has to be a conscious effort on your part. And the truth of the matter is it may take time, depending on the cause of your hurt. The trap many of us fall into is simply saying “I forgive you” from our heads whilst this has not registered in our hearts. You can tell this is the case when you see the person(s) who hurt you and something happens on the inside of you. Let’s put it this way, you are not blessing them! Therefore, I truly believe that moving beyond our hurt is a process that God takes us through. And all He desires of us is to be willing to lay ourselves on His operating table so He can perform surgery on our damaged hearts. For only He can reach into the recess of our hearts and heal us from within. Then and only then, would you be able to move past the pain of your yesterdays and yesteryears.

 IN CONCLUSION
If there is one thing you can expect to experience, it is being hurt by others. This hurt can come from trusted friends, family, spouses, children or even church folk. But regardless of its origin, one this is for sure - it hurts! Why? Because you are human. Moreover, you probably did not expect it. And so, you find it hard to move on. The truth of the matter is that many of us find it difficult to move on because we don’t deal with our hurts effectively. When this happens, it has a detrimental effect on us. It can affect the way we relate to God and others. It can affect our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. It can also affect our wellbeing.

So if you have been hurt of late, why not adopt these steps so you can be free for good? I pray that God, through the Comforter (i.e. The Holy Spirit), ministers to your heart. May He make your heart smile again.
CHEERS!!!!!

MY ROLE MODEL 2

Before i choose a role model I look deeply and closely into the life pattern of that person yes i have lots of people i respect all over the world but I am very careful choosing any of them as Role Model. The best role model I ever had is Jesus although its not kinda easy living his lifestyle but day after day i pray to God to help me. Therefore our youths should be very careful in selecting role models or mentors, particularly if they do not have direct acquaintance or knowledge of the mentors.

Everyone should adopt a mixture of admiration and critical attitude towards a role model. In addition, whenever possible it is best for a protégé to interact personally with, or do a thorough background check on, the mentor. That way one would likely avoid the embarrassment and disappointment occasioned by the realisation that one had been admiring the wrong person all along. Human beings are incurably fallible, which means that it is a grave mistake everywhere and every time for anyone to admire another human being to the point of becoming blind to that person’s weaknesses.. Clearly, the number of genuine and spiritually enlightened role models is declining very fast, and there is increasing proneness to hero-worship in most people.

Just imagine how Prof. Achebe rejected the national award twice. Every society needs men and women of exemplary character to serve as mentors and role models for members of the community, especially the youths. This is because the human the brain is a model-creating and model-seeking biological machine. To act rationally and sanely we need, in addition to good models of the world around us but, very importantly, adequate exemplars of good conduct to model our behaviour as social beings. That said, it is essential to have a good idea of the qualities we should cultivate through emulation.

Kimora Lee is someone I love washing her program because of her love for fashion and the quality of leadership she exercised when her former husband made her the President of his fashion PHATFAM, she turned it into a home of reality because it was already in her.

Kimora Lee Perkins was born on May 4, 1975 in St. Louis, Missouri,USA to an African-American father and a Korean-born Japanese mother. Her father, Vernon Whitlock, Jr., was the first black deputy Federal Marshal in St. Louis, while her mother, Kyoko Perkins, worked as a Social Security administrator. Due to her height and mixed ancestry, some of her schoolmates teased her and even cruelly nicknamed her "Chinky giraffe." Her mother, however, saw a potential in her daughter and enrolled her in a modeling class at age 11. Simmons was discovered two years later by a fashion agent who sent her to Paris. When she was 14, a fresh-faced Simmons received an exclusive modeling contract with fashion house Chanel. As one of Karl Lagerfeld's four muses - nicknamed "the Karlettes" by Women's Wear Daily - Simmons was handpicked by the designer himself to close his 1989 couture show. Among the models Simmons met during that time was Tyra Banks, who also happened to be her roommate in Paris. Banks later served as the maid of honor at Simmons' wedding to Def Jam Records founder and fashion mogul Russell Simmons.

The couple first met in the early 1990s when Russell spotted then-17-year-old Kimora walking the runway during New York Fashion Week. They married on the Caribbean island of St. Bart's in 1998, with his brother and hip-hop legend Reverend Run (of Run-DMC) officiating the ceremony. The following year, Russell created the Baby Phat line, an offshoot of his successful Phat Farm line geared towards a multiethnic female audience. His confident new wife took creative control of Baby Phat and turned it into its own multimillion dollar fashion and lifestyle brand that included denim, handbags, accessories, and later children's apparel. Baby Phat catered to an urban audience with its mixture of high fashion with casual street wear. While running her business alongside her husband, Simmons also raised their two daughters Ming Lee (born 2000) and Aoki Lee (born 2002).The family owned a mansion in East Hampton, NY and lived on an expansive property in Saddle River, NJ that housed artwork by Warhol and Basquiat, and Simmons' personal collection of Louis Vuitton luggage. Simmons made no apologies for her flashy and expensive way of life, and often credited hard work and dedication for living like royalty. Yet even success could not prevent the demise of Simmons' marriage. She and Russell separated in 2004, but remained close friends for the sake of their daughters.

 That same year, Russell sold Phat Farm to Kellwood Company and stepped down as CEO. Kellwood named Simmons President and Creative Director of Phat Fashions, which meant overseeing the entire fashion and lifestyle empire. To document her life as mogul and a mother, Simmons signed on to star on her own Style reality series "Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane." Cameras followed her as she tried to balance running a company with taking care of her two daughters. The series also showed a softer side to the "Glamazon" businesswoman, especially when she was around her daughters Ming and Aoki. On the show, Simmons coined the term "Fabulosity" for her luxurious and carefree lifestyle, but also used it to describe how her brand made women look and feel their best. In addition to her business ventures, Simmons also dabbled in acting, landing small parts in the comedies "For Love or Money" (1993) and "Beauty Shop" (2005), and published a self-help book titled Fabulosity: What it is and How to Get it (2006)

No doubt that I like her so much but this part of her is what i didnt like............

''While her divorce with Russell was not finalized until January 2009, Simmons began dating Academy Award-nominated actor Djimon Honsou two years prior. The couple had a son together, Kenzo Lee Honsou (born 2009). In 2010, Simmons parted ways with Kellwood and gave up control of her passion project Baby Phat, but was named Creative Director and President of personal shopping website JustFab.com the following year.

Oprah Winfrey Quotes about life, success............

Quotes about Life

"All of life is energy and we are transmitting it at every moment."

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."

"Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure."

"I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear."

"Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself."

"We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are."

"What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine."

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

"As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you - the first time around."

"If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the spirit."

"It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control."

"You are responsible for your life, and doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment."

The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.

"If you want to feel good, you have to go out and do some good."

"My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you I the best place for the next moment."

"Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you."

"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."

"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams."

"The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude."

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate."

"The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free."

"The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be."

"Turn your wounds into wisdom."

"Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility."

"Where there is no struggle, there is no strength."

"You CAN have it all. You just can't have it all at once."

Quotes about Success

"I do not believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process."

"You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it."

"What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people's lives."

"Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have."

"For everyone of us that succeeds, it's because there's somebody there to show you the way out."

"Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it."

"Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness."

"Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher

"So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground."

Personal Life Quotes

"I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life."

"I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes."

"I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me."

"I have a lot of things to prove to myself. One is that I can live my life fearlessly."

"When I look into the future, it's so bright it burns my eyes."

"I am a woman in process. I'm just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull."

"What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come."

"The reason I get what most don't is because I am willing to do what most won't!"

"I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good."

"If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are."

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down."

"It's much easier for me to make major life, multi-million dollar decisions, than it is to decide on a carpet for my front porch. That's the truth."

"There is a vision for my life that is greater then my imagination can hold."

MY ROLE MODEL 1

This month of June I want to dedicate it to my role models and mentors. I would be talking extensively about that life and success. 

The first person is Oprah Winfrey................“Oprah is a person who has become successful and spread it around to those who needs it the most. That is why she is my hero, mentor and role model”.  She is such a fashionable woman, who looks her best at every occasion.
 
Oprah Winfrey is a very important philanthropist who created a remarkable school for girls in South Africa. Of course, all celebrities start from somewhere, But Oprah’s childhood was an unfortunate part of her life. Once she started to become famous, she gathered her money and pushed it toward the greater good of the world. Oprah wanted to create a charity of her own but in the form of a school.
 
Her school in South Africa is the new part of her life. She dreams that these girls (it is all girls’ school) will become Africa’s future leaders. Oprah’s childhood helped her to be strong and become an amazing and successful person. It also told her that she does not want others to suffer from terrible things like she did.
 
Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29th 1954, to a pair of unmarried teenagers in Kosciusko, Mississippi. She was born into a Baptist family and her mother, Vernita Lee, originally wanted her name to be Orpah, a name from the Bible, but she accidentally misspelled her name and spelled it Oprah, but her Dad, Vernon Winfrey, liked it so she was named Oprah Gail Winfrey.
 
Oprah’s parents were having a tough time figuring out what was going to happen to them and their new baby Oprah. So, Oprah lived with her grandmother until she was six when her grandmother died. After the tragic death of her grandmother, Oprah moved in with her mother and three half brothers. They lived in an inner city ghetto in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

After living with her mother for a few years, Oprah was being abused by close relatives that her family trusted. This abuse started at the young age of nine. Being mixed into these unfortunate events, Oprah was also becoming a tough to deal with teenager. She ran away from home numerous times. She was the type of who teen that would break her glasses in order for her mother to buy her some newer, more stylish pair of glasses. And to top it all of, she got pregnant at the young age of fourteen. Sadly, the baby died after birth.
 
Her mother could not take it anymore so she sent her daughter to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee. Her father was a lot stricter than her mother. In fact, he made her learn five vocabulary words each day or else she would not receive any dinner. This was an important part of young Winfrey’s life because from this point on she was very successful.
 
When Oprah went to a new high school in Nashville, she became an excellent student. She was an honors student and she was voted most popular girl. She was also academically successful too. She joined the school’s speech team and placed second at a national competition. Her skills of being an incredible speaker won her first place at an Oratory contest and earned a scholarship to Tennessee State University.
 
From this point on, Oprah started to become the celebrity that we know today. Starting with her freshman year at Tennessee State University, she won herself the titles of Miss Black Nashville and Miss Black Tennessee. With all her publicity and her background on being a good speaker, Oprah got a job as the first African American female co-anchor at the age of nineteen.
 
After graduating from Tennessee State University in 1976 with a degree in communications, she took the next step in her life by becoming apart of the news anchor business. Her first place as a new news anchor was in Baltimore as the co anchor of the six o’clock news. Then she was recruited to the local talk show People Are Talking, and she hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars there, too.
 
After doing some local business in Baltimore, Oprah Winfrey became the head anchor of AM Chicago. She went from bad reviews to the highest rated talk show in Chicago! Then, in 1985, due to the popularity of the show, it was renamed the Oprah Winfrey Show. By the next year, the show was broadcast nationally. It soon became the number one talk show in America. Now she has fully transformed into the Oprah Winfrey that we know today.
 
Due to her success, Oprah has her own book club, magazine (“O” Magazine), and (as I said before) talk show! But, she still felt like something was missing. So, she went to the Nelson Mandela Foundation and started one of the three Christmas Kindness’. She felt that the children that she helped were just like her when she was at age nine. Young, helpless, and, nowhere to turn, so, she helped out with other foundations such as, Moorehouse College, The Harold Washington Library, The United Negro College Fund, Tennessee State University Fund, Nelson Mandela Foundation, and, Christmas Kindness’. This was the beginning of Oprah’s philanthropy.
 
Oprah felt that she did not feel apart of the organizations that she wrote checks to. So she made a school in South Africa called Oprah’s Leadership Academy. She began to choose girls for her school - mostly orphans and girls that she met from previous Christmas Kindness’. She wants the girls that attend her school to grow up to be Africa’s future leaders. She also wants them to be successful just like she is. 


For more information about her life, you can click on his link..............http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey

PLANNING

It is the process of setting goals, developing strategies, and outlining tasks and schedules to accomplish the goals. Planning can also be seen as a profession,with the primary purpose of improving the communities in which we live. Planners look not only at existing conditions and problems, but also develop a vision, with goals and strategies, of what a community could be in the future. Planning deals not only with physical development, but also social and economic improvement of our society. It looks at the issues of urban cities and rural communities, housing, environmental protection, historic character, economic development, improvements to our transportation system and social policies. Good planning gives direction to civic leaders, businesses and citizens to make meaningful decisions for the long term and how best their communities can grow into that future, while allowing for essential services to be provided in the near term.

A plan is like a map. When following a plan, you can always see how much you have progressed towards your project goal and how far you are from your destination. Knowing where you are is essential for making good decisions on where to go or what to do next.  Another reason why you need planning is again the 80/20 Rule. It is well established that for unstructured activities 80 percent of the effort give less than 20 percent of the valuable outcome. You either spend much time on deciding what to do next, or you are taking many unnecessary, unfocused, and inefficient steps. Planning is also crucial for meeting your needs during each action step with your time, money, or other resources. With careful planning you often can see if at some point you are likely to face a problem. It is much easier to adjust your plan to avoid or smooth-en a coming crisis, rather than to deal with the crisis when it comes unexpected.

Planning is done not only by trained professionals working in the public sector for planning departments or in the private sector for developers; planning is also done by lay persons who volunteer on local committees or commissions, including a planning commission, zoning board of appeals or historic district commission.





LEARN TO ALWAYS.......................................IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN THEN YOU HAVE PLANNED TO FAIL......
PLAN AHEAD FOR YOUR EXAMS, ANNIVERSARY, PROJECT, WEDDING, CHILDREN'S EDUCATION, etc.

The Power of Agreement

I welcome everyone to the month of Grace. May the Grace of God never leave us.  Being in unity is powerful.

Definition of agreement
It means to come into or be in harmony regarding a matter of opinion.

There is war over what you agree with because there is power in agreement. there are five important areas in a mans life that you need to be solid in. these areas are:
1. God
2. Your identity
3. Your future
4. Your relationships
5. Your Council

 I would focus on our need to be in agreement in two areas, agreement with God and with each other. Remember, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish when we come into agreement with each other.

 Matthew 18:19-20
"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

The power of unity is a universal principle, not just a church-principle. People working together toward an agreed upon goal are all but unstoppable. Early in the history of humankind, God stated this truth:

“Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men move eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, ‘Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar  for  mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.’” (Gen. 11:1- 6).

God had to disrupt unity and divide the human race in order to stop them from bringing destruction. The power of their unity was so great that God Himself declared that “nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” Humankind was unified for a purpose of their own—a purpose that would bring disaster on the earth. God had to scatter the human race until the day when He could reverse the division and restore unity—until the day when He, by His indwelling Spirit, could bring humans into agreement with Him and, finally, with each other. The unity described in Genesis was dangerous because humans were in agreement with each other, but not in agreement with God.


Spiritual Agreement in Prayer

Spiritual agreement is something different from having the same opinion. It goes much deeper. Agreement among believers begins in the heart of each individual believer before God. It’s a simple matter to find someone who “agrees” with you—someone who has the same opinion of what God should do in any given matter. This kind of agreement, in fact, weakens prayer. Why? Because two people who are drawn together because they have the same opinion will strengthen that opinion in each other. These two people will feed each other’s “arguments and pretensions” and will actually keep each other from hearing from God. Opinions about how God should handle a certain matter are ALWAYS dangerous. A pray-er who is listening to God can know what God wants to do but not how He is going to do it. He wants to “fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding “( Col. 1:9), but “his paths are past tracing out” (Rom. 11:33).
As believers, we have strongholds. Strongholds, as referred to in 2 Corinthians 10:4, are fortresses. Fortresses are erected to defend or protect something within their walls. These fortresses, Scripture says, are built out of arguments and pretensions. Arguments and pretensions serve to protect lies and stubborn opinions.
           ”For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons
             we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power
             to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up
             against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to
             Christ” (2 Cor.10:3-5).

“The weapons we fight with” are prayers—words initiated by God and voiced  believers. We don’t tear down strongholds with brute force or our bare hands. We don’t tear down strongholds with arguments and reasoning. We tear them down with prayer.When we allow strongholds to exist and protect our favorite opinions, we cannot hear God’s Voice. How can you know if you have a stronghold protecting an opinion or an attitude? By how many arguments you need to support and justify it! So you can see that if two people who have erected strongholds to protect the same opinion come together, the result will not be the tearing down of strongholds, but the strengthening of strongholds.
            ”Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be
             done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name,
             there am I with them” (Matt. 18:19-20).
What does it mean, then, to agree in prayer? The word translated “agree” is a word from which we get the English word, “symphony.” It means to harmonize, to blend several voices into one. The word “agree”means to be in harmony, but not necessarily in unison.With whom must a pray-er agree? He must agree with God. A pray-er must be in agreement with the intercession of Jesus, who is always in agreement with the will of
God. When more than one intercessor, each of whom is in agreement with God, come together to pray God’s will, then anything they ask Him to do, He will do.
                   “Where two or three come together in [His] name...,”
 concerted intercession produces effects on the earth. The word translated “come together” is a the Greek word sunago, which means “to join together; to make one.” It is the composite of two words: sun, which means to bring into complete union, and ago, which means to lead, guide or induce. The verb is in the passive tense, which means that the subject (two or three intercessors) is acted upon. They do not come together
 we must make the decision to stop        fighting against God and turn over every aspect of  our lives to Him. When we can accomplish this, we will begin to walk in full agreement with Him. In order for us to come into agreement with God we must believe. There can be no agreement if there is no belief. If we believe then we can agree. If we do not believe then we cannot agree. What is it that we must believe? That Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Once we believe this, we come into agreement with God and enter His family.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were asked to agree to something that in your heart you did not believe in? When this happened, was there not a conflict in what your beliefs were versus what you were being asked to do? If we do not fundamentally believe in what we are being asked to do, it is nearly impossible for us to do it with a clear conscience. If you cannot agree with something it is impossible to believe in it. Therefore if you can agree with something it becomes possible to believe in it.Now once we believe, something else starts to happen. When we come into God’s family the bible says that the love that we have for God will be extended to others because we are keeping God’s commandments. When we keep God’s commandments we are in agreement with Him. However,  it is impossible to love God and not love His other children. Our love for each other becomes the evidence that we are in agreement with God and are keeping His commandments. But notice the benefit, the bible says that everyone who is born of God “overcomes the world.”

The Power of Agreement in Marriage

The power of agreement is one of the most important themes we find in the bible.  This is particularly true when it comes to marriage.  Words like “agreement”, “unity”,  “oneness”, “being one” and “covenant”, are meant to convey powerful word pictures to encourage us to choose this blessed way of alignment for ourselves.  Jesus himself through the entirety of John 17 fervently prays that oneness would be a reality in the lives of all that would follow after him.

 Marriage, the union of two persons blending their two lives into one. Marriage, the climatical expression of love telling the whole world that this is the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with...at least until the honeymoon is over. The honeymoon stage is such a blissful time and then...reality sets in. After the honeymoon stage is over many may ask, "Do I really know this person?" One may come to the realization that the blending of two lives, ideas, thought patterns, family and friend selection is harder than first imagined.

As married couples in covenant with one another, we have an anointing and calling to be in agreement with both each other and also with God. Why is the blending of two lives so difficult? Consider this: We want everyone to agree with how we do things. As a single person, it's not necessary to get anyone to agree with you. You do things your way. However in a marriage, we are becoming one with a person who may or may not do things the way we think they should be done. And guess what? That's okay.   It is the picture of that threefold cord given to us in scripture that is not easily broken.  Just as the cord is tightly wrapped together so we are as couples to be wrapped around Christ and his word. When, as a couple, we make decisions to go our own way and build our own towers of what we will call a marriage, we can expect the following:

1. We immediately place ourselves in opposition to God and his will.
2. We immediately place ourselves in agreement with the Evil One.
3. We can expect to become temporarily invigorated with our new “mission”.
4. We will eventually fall into disillusionment.
5. We will then progressively fall into disappointment and despair.
6.  If we do not repent and align with the Lord, we will go through the same process all over again.
7. If we never come to the place of repentance, failed attempts will continue to promote ever changing aberrant marital constructs that can, over time, become hopeless, unbiblical, societal norms.

On the other hand, when we realize that we can walk in the power of grace the Lord has given us to align with one another and His word, we can expect the following:

1. We will immediately step into God’s grace and place ourselves under the full, unadulterated unifying power of the Holy Spirit.
2. We will immediately put God himself between us and the enemy of our blessed covenant of marriage.
3. We will immediately be infused with encouragement and favor to be everything God has meant for us to be.
4. We will continue to become encouraged as we experience God’s transforming power in our marital relationship.
5. We will become stronger, more confident and more determined to follow God’s will for our marriage.
6. We will become excellent examples of a godly marriage that will become an encouragement to others.

When we adopt this principle of agreement with God and one another as a foundation for our marriage, it serves to direct everything we both do and do not do.    It becomes a restrictive track on which we run that will take us to a place of promise, blessing and favor.  Who wouldn’t want that? I have purposely used the word “restrictive” because that is exactly what God’s track is.  Just like a railroad track defines where the train starts and finishes so does every other track. We’ve all heard of the common expression, “being off track or getting off track”.  Things start looking unfamiliar.  My level of confidence in where I’m going begins to weaken.  We can be the most beautiful people, physically attractive, great personalities, financially successful, well educated, well loved by others and either go nowhere because we have become distracted by some other goal and jumped the track or end up in the wrong place because we have chosen to define what a marriage will be for ourselves and gone our own way. Potential and good intentions never guarantee progress towards any goal.  Potential, when it is properly directed and developed in the right way, produces progress to attain that goal.

In conclusion, the beauty of the human race is that each of us have our own fingerprint and no one else's fingerprint is exactly like the other. No one else's fingerprint is exactly like yours and because of that we can make a consciouswww.rachealpalmfoundation.blogspot.com decision to just get along and live with our differences. Our differences is what makes each of us unique. I can love you for you and you can love me for me even with our disagreements. That's the beauty of our differences. God made us that way. He created each of us different. Embrace the differences. Learn from the differences.

When we approach the subject of marriage from the standpoint of agreeing with what God has already set in order, we will reap the successful, fulfilling relationship He has planned for us.

CHEERS!!!!