adminof exercising, praying, paying tithes, studying, saving money, letting go of hurts, taking medication, eating healthy food and loving unconditionally.
The list is not exhaustive you can add more to it.
Imagine how difficult it is to leave your comfort zones like the couch, the warm bed or the television to study, pray, do chores or to exercise. It could also be a choice between that favourite sugary dessert of yours and a bowl of fruits.
The world tells us to love those who love us back.
It tells us to give those who give us back as the Shona adage says “Kandiro kanoenda kunobva kamwe”.
Our choices usually go for those things that are easier on the body or exciting regardless of the cost. We also do things that make us heroes and not villains in the eyes of the world.
I have come to the conclusion that anything that brings positive value to our lives very often faces resistance. This manifests in various forms such as laziness, discouragement, excuses or postponement. Am I right to conclude that all these hurdles that come our way have one purpose, that of fighting the individual?
As Joel Osteen often says, the enemy does not fight you for where you are coming from but for where you are going. Why, because he or she knows what you can accomplish if you overcome and do the right thing. Each person has God-given potential to be what he or she wants to become but there are many things that come our way to disturb us. I think the worst destractions come from within a person rather than from outside.
External pressures can be overcome through determination and God’s grace that always finds us.
In life, we have things that we value. These vary in the importance that we afford them. Certain things are closer to our hearts than others. This is why we hear people say “ichi ndofa nacho” (This, I will die with).
Similarly there are things that hurt us. Some of the pain is bearable, we can live with it or can let go easily.
Yet there are things that we hold on to because of the gravity of the pain that was inflicted on us.
There are people that we have failed to forgive not because of what they did to us but because we never thought they would do what they did.
Is this not why we hear people say, “Zvandakaitwa nanhingi handimbofa ndakazvikanganwa” (I will never forget what so and so did to me).
Usually when you look into the issue you see that the “done” thing might not be that grave but the relationship between the parties makes the issue bigger.
Problems are bound to arise between husband and wife, parents and children, workmates, relatives, church mates and even neighbours because we interact frequently.
In such instances it sounds right to retaliate or to give the person a taste of his or her own medicine.
Have you noticed how it sounds so right to get back at someone or even how much excitement it generates in you and the listeners?
There are many reasons to justify such actions. The strong voice in you and those of the people around you usually compel you further with words like “vanojaira” (they take you for granted) and “iwe wanga uchadiniwo” (what would you have done under the circumstances). All these, no matter how justifiable, do not really have a positive value on your life. They can become our major regrets and rob us of a life.
Usually ego stands in our way when we want to do the good thing. You know what has to be done but doing it makes you feel stupid, portrays you as a coward and makes you feel a lesser person.
Consider how walking away from a fight says about you in the eyes of the world? How about holding your peace in the face of a verbal attack? It is more like giving the other cheek to someone who has slapped you on the other. Chances are that you become the big fool yet in actual fact it is disarming to the attacker or accuser.
To me this is victory because you hear the attacker asking you whether he or she is crazy.
Dear reader, you must have heard the statement “saka unofunga kuti ndinopenga inini”. When this happens know you have made the right choice.
Think of how leaving your bed or the television to do some work would impact on your studies, business, relationships and your faith. Doing that right thing seems difficult but it has positive consequences.
You are the number one beneficiary because it improves your emotional, social, mental and physical health. It also has a ripple effect on others because people learn from you. You can become a reference point as people wonder how you managed to make through the difficult circumstances.
Sometimes even those that have aggrieved us learn something and change their ways.
I recall a story that a preacher shared some years back of a man who had an errant wife. The wife would go away to have a time of her life and then come home.
The husband accepted her each time she returned.
When asked why he does not chase her away he would say “handidi kutakura chitema necheumwe” (I do not want to carry the burden of someone else’s sin).
This man was a hero, I must say. Anyway, taking this story into the context of this issue I can say failure to do the right thing at the right time can prove costly.
We get weighed down by the weight of all those people who have wronged us that we carry in our hearts.
We may also end up doing the same thing more than once, which is more of “punishment plus move”.
Doing the right thing can be done so my dear, go ahead and do that right thing!
Online Reporter