Welcome! It’s a bright Monday in my part of Lagos, and I’m at work. Our nation kicked off the election process on Saturday and in some parts; voting continued till yesterday though it hasn’t been a smooth sailing all the way. In my estimation, things have turned out better than most people thought and definitely better than some people hoped.

In thinking through and following the highlights of the process, I can tell you that this is one of the most keenly contested elections in the history of Nigeria. And this is one election that the politician has learnt or is learning that the Nigerian may be an ordinary person but he should never be taken for granted! The results are yet to be announced as I write this, but I am confident that in the end, whatever the outcome, that which God had ordained to achieve for this season will be achieved. I am not afraid or concerned for my nation because I dare say that there is One higher than us all- who is actually in charge, and He is God.

What does this have to do with my greatest struggle, I know you are wondering? Well, there was a time in my life that, even though, what I have expressed above are my conviction and opinion; I would never have been able to voice it in a public domain such as this.

You see, my greatest struggle through life is not with what people say or do to me, it is about who I am and how I see myself.

In bringing to a close our postings over the last one month on the issue of Mandates, Destiny, DNA and my book- Destiny Navigational Application, I have taken the time to reflect on what has changed in my life because of the information I have been sharing. While I can tell you that a lot has changed in my life, the single most important change I have experienced is to learn to accept me for who I am and to recognise that while some people may not appreciate who I am, it is my responsibility to be true to myself if I want to make headway in life, especially as regards what I believe I have been called to do.

Before I made this change, and my life became something I enjoyed, my greatest challenge was how to demarcate my life into two. I knew that I was called as a Minister of the gospel, but I also knew that I was quite cerebral, and if I didn’t get to use my intellectual endowment the way I wanted, I was going to be miserable. However, I had also been taught that one couldn’t be a Bible teacher and anything else in the secular at the same time. I was told that success will come to me if I know how to speak ‘secularese’ when I get into the market place and keep my Christian expressions in church circles.

Looking back, that has been the most miserable time of my life. My instinct told me that everything revolved around who I was in my DNA, but others told me I was never going to taste success except I changed, or I kept all that I did within the faith-based community.

I remember someone telling me that Effectual Magazine, my first offering was only going to succeed if I used the name of Jesus sparingly and I didn’t tell people that the principles were from the scripture. What they said made sense, and I actually experienced some doors shut to my face because as they put it then, ‘they didn’t want to be seen as supporting faith-based products or events’… this continued for a while. I am not proud to say it, but I actually contemplated changing who I am to suit their version of me that they said would succeed.
Thankfully, after a long struggle, I woke up and realised that I would only be the best version of me if I remained true to myself.

In coming to this conclusion, I also had to settle within me a few things, amongst which were:

1. I wasn’t called to everyone, so it was foolhardy to expect everyone to love me or believe in what I was called to do.

2. I had a gift, and my gift was particularly given to solve specific problems. So if I decided to alter the constituency of my gift, then I will not be able to solve any problems.

3. When we are called, we are not called to a popularity contest, so I had to be comfortable with whatever I had been given to deal and transact.

4. Anything short of who I truly am in my DNA will be a wannabe at best and a fraud in the worst case scenario. None of these was an interesting place for me to be.

5. It is better to fulfil my mandate to one person than to serve one million people and in the end be told I missed my mark.

By the time I considered the above points and realised that they all spelt one thing – be comfortable in your skin, I told myself that I had to redefine what success would look like to me. The moment I took the time to define my personal success, I discovered how freeing living life as me was going to be, and I stuck with it.

It has been a very great and interesting journey in the last 15 years. I still have people still say to me they cannot give me a chance because I choose to live my life as a whole and not in compartments. But rather than feel bad, I take it as a compliment because it clarifies for me the fact that I stand for something.

Sometimes, I have wondered if I will ever earn enough but then to deal with it, I had to redefine my bottom line- people. Today, I am more certain about the reason I do the things I do than when I started, and I will not change for anyone or anything.

So maybe, you are struggling with who you truly are because you have been told that who you are will not sell, then it is time to define success in your own terms because from where I stand, only the life lived as a whole will ever matter or birth anything worthwhile.

So in this 5th instalment of my blog on living life according to God’s mandate for you, I want to encourage you that in the end, only those who are comfortable in their skin will make it NeverTheLess.

I will love to hear from you.  Drop your comment here or on my Facebook page.  If you are yet to purchase your copy of my book Destiny Navigational Application please click here.

Discover Purpose, Live Powerful!

Bidemi