AVOID THE RAT RACE

sometime back there was a feature in one of our dailies on “The Money Column” of a lady who was doing so well. In-fact, the title of the column was “how i made my Millions…In that column, this lady was really at it, telling everyone who cares to listen how she worked hard to make her millions and emerged such success story. She started from a petty trader and grew her wealth slowly, into what she is now. She was encouraging the youth to start small and grow gradually…. Wao!!…so you can think and exclaim, but as she was giving the world her success story, it happened that the media noticed her, dug into their archives and carried a caption of her being taken to the courts. According to the story, she was accused of stealing from her employer ( who is a bank here in Nairobi!)

Of-course she was jailed for some few yrs and then acquitted, for lack of evidence, but to many of us with common sense, we could now easily trace the genesis of her millions, and where she got the capital to start her thriving business.

When i was thinking about this, I realized many of us, if not all, we get so much in this thing called “rat racing, without full knowledge of how other people made it to where they’re. A rat race is an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit of a dream, calling, or goal that is not yours, but another person’s. Many of us, we just want to be like that millionaire, and it gets worse when we see our college mates prospering in a businesses’ they just started the other day, yet here we’re, struggling in a job that does not meet our needs.

This makes our adrenaline to go up, and with that revelation, we dash into business, but without knowledge! We later struggle in business, or any area of the person we are pausing, and our ends never meet. The reality is, our goal is to be like so and so, and if he made it, i must make it. This has made us without our knowledge to pursue things that God himself has not certified for us. We fail to understand that not all blessings are from God.

God’s desire has never been that we follow people’s dreams but we are only supposed to follow our callings in life. Don’t just write because you see me writing. You will fail. Pursue what God mapped for you.

Paul knew how dangerous rat racing is. He said, “We would not dare put ourselves in the same class with, or compare ourselves to those who recommend themselves. Whenever they measure themselves by their own standards or compare themselves among themselves, they show how foolish they are. We will not boast about what cannot be evaluated. Instead, we will stay within the field that God assigned us, so as to reach even you. For it is not as though we were overstepping our limits when we came to you [2 Corinthians 10:12-14]

The Apostle knew how far he should go and was willing to pursue his dreams based on his calling in Christ, without overstepping his mandate. This to us believers should be a lesson to learn from it. Never go beyond your mandate nor run to catch them or be ahead of them. This lady who stole from a bank sometime back never knew how history can a shame her, when she paraded her riches, thinking people have forgotten her and where she got her money from, to set up such a business.

Saint of God, Not all wealth comes from God and it’s futile and wearisome to pa-sue someone who made it in an evil way, thinking you will make it yourself. For God’s sake, never be involved in any rat race. Yes, sometimes, based on what God has called us individually, it’s possible to find someone come from behind you and pass you in every field. Let it no bother you. You can’t overturn God’s plan on any individual however how much you run to outdo them. I’m not against being inspired by other people but get inspiration and follow your call and mandate as the Lord leads you. After all, we are only supposed to fight to be like Christ alone, the other one is a rat race that leaves us wounded with self-inflicted wounds. May God help us. God bless you