Power Trip: 1. slang – A sustained and often aggressive exercise of power over others in order to boost one’s stature or feelings of self-worth.
Telling someone not to believe their own hype is the same as telling them not to get on their own power trip. These are both expressions that I didn’t really understand until recently (the last few years) – mainly because life has a way of showing you that, as powerful and talented as we think we are, we aren’t all that. A realisation that one needs to be dependent on God can only be a good thing. I think getting too far without a true relationship with Jesus can only be to our detriment.
A lot of the time we want to make things happen when we want them to happen, and how we want them to happen. But God has a plan for each of our lives – one that ultimately gives him all of the glory, and one that he will work out in our lives according to his will.
This last weekend, I logged on to Twitter only to be greeted by a bunch of egotistical tweets by South African rapper AKA aimed at his baby mamma – DJ Zinhle. Over the past few years we’ve gotten used to outspokenness and egotistical behaviour from the rapper and we’ve come view it as normal, but it isn’t.
Living a life where God gets added to the hustle rather than God running your life and the hustle getting added to it, can lead to a lot of problems. For example, it could lead to us working and fighting for things that don’t matter in the grander scheme of things.
“Our greatest fear should not be failure, but succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” – Francis Chan (Author)
Here are four reasons why you should entrust your timeline to God, and not to yourself:
(Adapted from a writing by Francis Chan)
1. Doing things God’s way gives you time to learn
We live in a day and age where we want instant results: instant food, instant information, and instant responses from messages. Because of this we expect everything we do to fall into place the moment we think about it. When pursuing things God’s way, we are given enough time to plant the necessary seeds so that we can develop meaningful relationships and pursue the right goals that give all of the glory to God!
2. Doing things God’s way gives us time to get our ego under control
Human beings are super funny creatures. We think that we are in such control over the world when we enjoy little victories – when we make a lot of money, live in a big house, drive a nice car – we get so wrapped up in our ability to make things happen! So, unfortunately, it sometimes takes a major disaster to get our ego under control.
Outside of these disasters, our egos continue to grow and grow. That is how hungry and powerful our pride is. And so, when we make plans and they don’t pan out and we feel frustrated, we are reminded that God has a schedule for us. Here, we are faced with two choices: Either to trust in God and as a result, get our ego in check, or we can continue to feel frustrated and anxious. The choice is all ours.
3. Doing things God’s way often lines up better opportunities for us
You might think that the timeline that you’ve set up for yourself is the right timeline. But, interestingly enough, when you meet failure, it often involves greater opportunities coming your way later on. In fact, you might be shooting for “small potatoes” when God has lined up even bigger opportunities for you. In many cases, relying on God’s timeline and refusing to feel defeated and frustrated when our best-laid plans don’t pan out may be the best thing that we can do for ourselves. Why? Because then we are opening ourselves up to the possibility that God has saved for later.
4. God’s scheduling ensures you grow enough to fully appreciate success
Life – it’s all about failure and challenges and trials mixed in with successes and blessings. When success comes very easily we develop a mindset where we feel entitled to that success and we don’t fully appreciate it enough.
Many times, when we are forced to wait, we grow and mature as people and we begin to develop an appreciation for success. This is a blessing in itself because by focusing on God’s timeline, we are able to see the things that are going right in our lives and develop a greater understanding and appreciation of them, leading to a more fulfilled life.
Trusting in God, and not in our own strength to boost our own egos, is always the better option. God has set out a plan regarding your and my life and he is going to make sure that all of those things come to pass if we live for him. I think if we can learn the lesson of surrendering all to him early on we’ll save ourselves the pain of being constantly frustrated or angry and hurt at all the things we think should have gone right.
If, at the moment, you’re all about living for yourself instead of for God, why don’t you click on the banner below?