Growing up as a young person I always heard the saying “It only gets better”, and I was an ardent believer in it. Maybe it was the faith in me speaking, professing positive words of affirmation, that maybe someday the workload on me will suddenly disappear and I will have the soft life I have always craved. Trust me when I say I fit perfectly into your definition of a lazy person. I am always running away from responsibilities, and see if I can maybe avoid them. It was/ is so bad that I would procrastinate because I was waiting for the perfect time when it has suddenly gotten better. And that is the big fat lie we have told ourselves a lot of times. This singular lie has helped some of us walk our way out of purpose because we do not understand it.
One day out of my frustration, I reached out to a dear friend of mine, and he told me to buckle up and start acting on all God had told me to do already, because it doesn’t get any better. I thought about this long and hard because I was already under pressure to do many things, and balancing them was a big issue for me. I even failed at balancing them well, my eating habit suffered greatly, and my sleep too. Yet, I still did not do effectively all I needed to do because I had a nagging thought that it would someday get better and I would balance my food and sleep. Lol. Well, after thinking and God giving me lessons I would be sharing with you, I saw that truly it doesn’t get any better. The pressure wouldn’t disappear, and the seemingly little amount of time that is not even enough for you wouldn’t multiply, maybe it would but you can’t be so sure.
The parable of the talents in Matthew 25: 14-30 taught me a lesson that I also want to share with you. When that guy (the one who was given five talents), let’s call him Ogidan, sat down after a day of hard labor trying to trade and make a profit from what his master gave him, He must have thought to himself that ‘this is only for a short while when my master returns and I hand over both the capital and profit I have made to Him, I can eventually rest and do other things I so desire to do. For now, let me keep pressing on.’ He must have consoled himself with those words, just like you do too. Ogidan never knew that when the Master would give the one talent Alakori refused to make use of to him.
Many times you would say “Let me just read and pass, after these exams I won’t go through this rigorous exercise again”. Forgetting that with every new level unlocked is a much greater assignment. Remember when you left secondary school and were excited to go to a higher institution, nobody prepared you for all the shockers you met upon resuming, right?
Alakori, the man with the one talent who refused to do anything with it, is a different character I may come to talk about some other day.
When the Master gave to Ogidan what was taken from Alakori, he must have been bewildered with tears streaming down his face. Not tears of joy, tears from the realization of the responsibility that had just hit him. Working with 5 talents to earn 5 more was rigorous, now he had to trade and make a profit with not just Alakori’s talent but the 10 talents he has gathered. Somehow, he must put in the effort and make the 11 talents become 22.
So you see, it doesn’t get any better. It only gets more strenuous. Somehow there’s always something more to do. So don’t ignore working now, or wait until it suddenly gets better, it never does.
I know you have a whole lot demanding your attention now, but if you do not attend to them and excel at it now, you would never be able to do well when you have greater assignments and demands. Someday you would be someone’s daddy or mummy and you would have to be responsible for their wellbeing, attend to your job, your spouse, your parents and siblings and your walk with God must not suffer while at all these. It really doesn’t get any better, you just learn to handle it well as it comes.
But amidst all these, some things get better. When you do just what you ought to, your resolution gets stronger, you get more clarity, and your walk with God better as you over time learn to lean on him and trust Him for help.
So rise up from your excuse bed and go back to all that God has asked you to do. The situation may not get better, you must get better.
I am rooting for you.
Yours-in-love,
Mo, The Light Bearer.✨
It doesn't get better of a truth but it makes us stronger and tougher to face the battles coming head on