Martha Olawale

“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2

Positive thinking is an idea filtered through the lens of mankind. It emphasizes the ability to believe and speak your beliefs into existence. Although it tries to mirror the positivity of the Christian faith, it is nothing like what the Bible teaches. While a positive thinking ideology promotes following one's heart and the power of self, a godly posture anchors on absolute surrender to God.  

I am learning to read people better because, like everyone, I’ve fallen prey to judging books by their covers instead of each sentence on their pages. I’ve come to understand that who you follow and what you believe are the core of who you are. The values and life system of someone who walks with Jesus rests on the premise that his/her life is not theirs but God’s. He/she moves at the pace of Heaven and, although still wrestling with human emotions, lives above the dictates of those emotions.

My expectations in a room of Christians are no longer misguided by human imperfections because that will always be constant. I am as human as anyone, so I know the struggles of “Keeping it all together.” For me, it is now more about the heart and ‘heartitude.’ No matter where we are in our walk with Christ, our hearts and how far we are willing to go with Him must be in surrender.

Until we start reading the pages of other Christians' lives as finger-written by God, we’ll miss the theme of the stories. It’s a process, and we are all at different stages. Don’t get me wrong; I know what love is because I’ve tasted the love of Jesus, which makes me see what hate is and apply wisdom in navigating that from afar.

If built on the foundation of the cross, each of our stories has the same theme, rooted in grace and mercy. To see the accurate picture, we must read the story through God’s eyes. Everyone is a work in progress, and the finale of all our stories ends in perfection—perfection guaranteed through our redemption and adoption into the family of God.

If you read me as the author of my life, you are reading me wrong. If you think I have moved an inch in the right direction without God, you’re missing the entire point of my life. You are looking at the wrong picture if you can’t see me beyond the patches of human imperfections. Lean in and look closer; you’ll see that the pages of the final lines of each chapter of my life conclude in God’s triumph.

Jesus is the author and the finisher of my life. He wrote the chapter on all my wins, smiles, laughter, joy, peace, mission, and vision. Every wrong thing in the story happened when I took the pen from Him and scribbled the lines. As followers of a divine covenant, our greatest joy is knowing and living for Christ alone.