“Pastor, the demand for my talent is getting overwhelming, I hardly have time for myself. What do I do?”

I’m glad you sought counseling, because that’s a trap of the devil that may end your relevance sooner than you imagined. I’ve observed that if the devil can’t stop you from rising, he’d begin to take unsuspecting actions, so that your rising would not stand the test of time.

One of the greatest things I’ve learnt about life is that it’s not only God that gives favour, Satan can also give favour. But the difference is that Satan only gives favour because he wants something back in return. So Satan can give you clients, multitudes of clients, and just because they are Christian clients doesn’t mean they were sent by God to patronize you. Satan moved them to patronize you so that you can remain busy until you burn out.

At this point, the need for discernment in your life becomes a critical thing. Check young talents and businesses that didn’t stand the test of time, it’s usually because they lacked discernment. They took a job or an offer that they were not supposed to take, and the offer choked them little by little until something or someone else outshined them. Some of them stopped developing themselves until their system became irrelevant to the season.

When we were much younger, we had this mango tree close to our estate gate. Anytime it had ripe mangoes, both children and adults in the estate would visit that tree to pluck mangoes. If it’s an harvest season, fruits already on the tree gets ripe within 24 hours, which means a mango fruit that wasn’t ripe yesterday would have ripened by today. This also means that we visited that tree daily until there was no more fruit on it. When there’s no more fruit, the tree continues to provide shelter until its next harvest season. This means that in order not to lose relevance, it has to keep contributing to the community in some other way.

It is said that a mango tree can live up to 100 years. Depending on the age of the mango tree, a mango tree can bear between 100 and 3000 fruits within a harvest year. So the older the tree, the more fruits it can produce within an harvest year. I’m not sure why that happens, but it tells me that one’s capacity is expected to increase as age increases – even though this is not always the case with human beings.

The bible says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. If that’s the case, then we should learn from the mango tree. Create a system that will help you stand the test of time

Self development is naturally resisted once you become famous or once the demand for your service increases. And if you’re not careful, you’d get so engrossed with serving people that you’d ignore servicing yourself. If every motorists would pay attention to servicing their vehicles, we’d have very minimal vehicular breakdowns on the road. It might interest you to know that most great visions don’t stand the test of time only because of lack of self development.

The only solution to self development when the demands for your service has increased is to create a routine. Put people on appointments, and make self development a daily routine. Create a fixed time for investing in yourself, and let nothing tamper with that time. Create a time for bible study, create time for prayer, create time for studying materials within your profession, and let it be a specific time everyday. If you don’t create a routine, you’d never be able to develop yourself.

Personally, I’ve had to create a routine for studying and praying. For a person who writes daily like me, if you don’t study, you’d soon burn out. Of course, the Holy Spirit will always be there to inspire me, but He works better by giving us understanding or inspiration on something we already studied.

As I conclude, if you need to employ a manager to help you manage your growth, then do so by all means. The key thing is to be able to keep growing while you meet the demands for your service. That’s how you stand the test of time. May you never lose relevance!

I hope this has brought enlightenment to someone.

Remain ever blessed, in Jesus precious name!

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