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Dr Nick Ohizu The Voice of God
Today, we will be focusing on the aspect of planning for emotional success.
Planning emotionally for a successful year implies putting a plan in motion to protect your heart.
This is important because most of our emotional traumas emanate from our relationships, like friendship, marriage and our children.
The danger of emotional breakdown is high that we are required to protect ourselves emotionally because they may not have seen the strength of the human spirit and what it can do when it is in the right place.
The Bible says, “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear” [Proverbs 18:14 KJV]. The spirit of man is the epicentre of human achievements and the engine room that powers our visions to great success. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that we safe guard our spirit from harm.
Our spirit is so powerful that it can sustain any kind of infirmity. Sickness, therefore, kills the body when the spirit is tired of resisting.
Hypothetically speaking, two people get the same sickness and one survives and the other does not. It is because the spirit of the one that survived may have been constantly inspired by the word of God and surrounded by loving relationships that cause them to find a reason to live every day until the spirit rejects the option to quit.
However, the one that succumbs to the infirmity may be the spirit that has gone through some series of emotional traumas and has consistently been wounded by so-called loved ones.
They may have had a tough life filled with different problems and misfortunes to the level that the person succumbs very fast because they have sustained a high percentage of emotional injuries that their spirit lost the tenacity to resist.
This is made obvious by scenarios where some people live with terminal diseases for a longer time while some people succumb to the same immediately after they are diagnosed.
It is highly recommended that we empathise with loved ones, especially when they are struggling to do what is expected of someone in similar situations.
For example, there are people that can still do some chores, take a walk, eat and even sit and talk with family while going through some life threatening disease or situation while some people would not even be able to come out of bed.
The tendency to compare them with others is always high, but we forget that two people may have the same sickness and yet have experienced different traumatic events in life.
Based on the above reality, planning for emotional success should be given a priority with the following steps taken in advance as we approach the end of another year.
1.Guard your heart: King Solomon recommended that one should “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” [ NLT]. The heart of man and the spirit of man are scripturally interchanged. Guarding the heart connotes putting a plan in place to protect our spirit because it determines the course or the direction of life.
If no man can bear a broken spirit, then people with emotional problems are unlikely to make any progress in life because pain is a stopper. Whenever we feel pain, God is telling us that something is out of order.
Guarding our hearts entails identifying people who are always causing such pain and avoid them, taking time and counsel to decide whether to get into certain relationships.
Also means allowing our minds not our emotions to do our thinking, it also means choosing our life partners carefully because 90 percent of our happiness in life will come from that one decision, trust less and analyse more, interrogate the benefits of our friendships and streamline who should be in our lives next year, avoiding high risk financial investments and above all, creating time for personal rest.
2.Hear no evil, speak no evil
In the process of planning emotionally at the end of last year, one of my resolutions was to ensure that nothing I say or do will cause anyone pain. I thank God that by his grace, I have done significantly well in keeping that promise. It started by creating words of affirmation and positive confessions that I used to start my day as well as greetings to people.
“Whatever a man sows, a man shall also reap” [Galatians 6:7, KJV]. What goes around comes around. When one sows evil, they will eventually reap evil. I am not saying that people with broken hearts were heart breakers.
No, I am using this as a warning for people who are planning a successful emotional year to avoid speaking words that will hurt others because there is no sense in expecting a peaceful life while one goes around causing mayhem for others.
Make a commitment to a peaceful life for others and somehow, it will turn around for you as a harvest. Make a decision to hear no gossips, avoid being the gossiper as well.
Think of ways to make life better for others in one way or another, God will cause others to make life better for you.
Most people with broken spirits are people who have not taken time to implement the above principles and carelessly hand their hearts to people who have no remorse when it comes to destruction.
Dr Nick Ohizu is the senior pastor of the Empowerment Ministries and the president of the Empowerment School of Wealth both located in Graniteside Harare. He is a successful entrepreneur with vast experience in leadership, mentorship, business and marriage consultancy with a mandate from God to change lives and bless people. Feedback : 0772304917.
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