Making your life count with 4Cs — (The Competent Hand of a Maid)
This article is the complete material of a WhatsApp group that I was invited to be the lead presenter to the youth of RCCG Lagos Province 64 YAYA
Hello! My name is Opeoluwa Mesonrale, I am your facilitator for next 2 Mondays in August 2019, to discuss on “Making your life count with 4Cs”.
A little About me.
I am not the best of men but God’s grace and a learning heart have been my anchor. Schooled at Yaba College of Technology and Obafemi Awolowo University to study Mechanical Engineering. The desire to put my ideas into reality lead me to the world of Software Engineering.
When I was OAU, it was like I was studying for two degrees. During the day, I am a mechanical engineering student, at night and during the holidays or strike I horn my skills in Software development. When I graduated, I had two good CV’s one for mechanical engineering Jobs and another for Software development jobs.
August =4C’s
In this month of August, we are discussing the 4C’s as necessary tools that enable us to correctly engage the time and season of our lives as young people. The 4C’s are Courage, Competence, Capacity, and character.
This teaching is divided into four topics
Week 1: The Courage of a Son
Week 2: The Competent hand of a Maid
Week 3: The Capacity of a Mother
Week 4: The Character of a Father
Recap for Week 1
Last week we spoke about courage, let quickly do a recap on what we learned last week
What is courage? Courage is the ability to act in the presence of fear. It is your ability to be stable in the presence of daunting challenges and still act decisively.
Killers of courage
If you want everything to be perfect you cannot take courageous steps. The key driver for courage is that “being decisive is more important than making the right choice”. If after reasonable facts have been presented you should take decisive steps based on the knowledge you have. When you attain better understanding and you discover that your initiate decision was wrong to be quick to take another decisive action to rectify it.
Courage and Knowledge
Another major driver of courage is knowledge. The less you know the more you will be afraid of making a decision. If you know how to kill a lion and you have the necessary tool to execute the process you will not be after if you see a lion suddenly.
Courage is about being decisive based on the facts placed before you. It is not about having board chest and high taste for meaningless risk.
Ability to read the situation correctly
To be courageous does not mean necessary one should be suicidal or throw away reason when we face a challenging situation. Your ability to read a situation correctly is very important as you make a courageous decision. Somethings courage means to run away to live so you can fight another day. This reminds me of this Yoruba proverb that says, “ A child that does not know how to handle cutlass can not ask who killed his father” This implies that timing is key.
Courage comes with little progress
David was first killed of wolf, bear, lion before he was courageous enough to face and defeat Goliath. If you want to close down big deals, first focus on how to close small business deals
Who backs you up
Who and what backs you influence your courage coefficient. The word of God says all things work together for your good. This gives Christians assurance that no matter what happens God will turn it around for good. Your absolute faith in God’s ability to see you through life challenges makes face life with hope and strength.
This week two, we discuss The Competent hand of a Maid
The Competent Hand of a Maid
Text: Prob 22:28 Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.
What is Competent?
According to the dictionary competent is having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully. I will also define competence as mastery of an art or service. It is the ability to deliver a particular type of results in record time consistently.
Who is a Maid?
Today we take some illustration from a maid. In the early 20th century when the word maid was very popular in the western world. A maid is considered as a competent young woman that delivers an accurate result on a particular task. She is committed, patient, have servanthood heart and focus on a course or goal.
Workplace requirement
Competent is a strong requirement if we want to be relevant in the workplace.
Competent and Mastery
To be competent you must strive for mastery. To attain competent in anything one must take deliberate action to acquire mastery in a field or over a thing. And this could take many hours of toiling to acquire the necessary skills.
Small work Vs Big work
Hard-work, smart-work goes hand in glove in helping us acquire competence. Be happy to work, be proud of working. Work is not a curse. The concept of small work big reward is possible after you have acquired certain capacity and mastery over a thing. But before you achieve this reputation you must be willing to bend your back and work diligently.
Do you hate work?
Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. KJV
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. NIV
Work is a Gift
God created man and put him in the garden to work. As long as we breathe, we must and should work because before the fall on man in the garden God commanded man to work. Stop hating work, it is not a curse, it is a gift from God to you to bring out the best in you.
How to acquire competence
- Determine what you want to acquire competence in
- Do a rough guess of how many hours or months or years it will take you to become an authority in that field
- Be patient and committed to your goal
- Enjoy the work and enjoy the process
- Strive for mastery
- Have a strong distaste for mediocrity
- Rest and play in between sprint of focus intentional deliberate work.
How to frustrate the process of acquiring competent
- Procrastination
- Seeking perfection instead of mastery
- Laziness
- Disdain for knowledge
We continue from here next time….