TESTIMONY: Self help is no help at all

It does not matter how good anything is as long as it excludes God it will never be good enough for me.

I was once a member of a network marketing group whose main selling point was financial freedom.I believed strongly in the self help industry so the other attraction to me was the access to self help books and tapes which were provided to members. 

When I was in this network marketing group we were encouraged to listen to the tapes at least once a day.I did not listen to anything else when I stepped into my car but those tapes, but unfortunately they had no positive impact on my life nor did the books help in building up the business. As a result I quit after a year or so.

I believe many people have benefited from self help strategies but sadly I can't say the same for me and this unfortunately was a pattern in many other self help endeavors I engaged in. Recently I reflected on why this was the case because the self help industry is a multi million dollar industry which means it must be working for others. It turns out for me there are 3 key self help strategies that I had difficulty implementing.

1. Being present in the moment

Being present means being fully conscious of the moment and free from the noise of internal dialogue. To achieve this successfully one has to think about the present moment and not allow the mind to wonder in the past because it is gone or the future because it is not guaranteed. I struggled with this because there were things in my past I could not help but think about all the time.It was even more difficult to not think about the future. This was especially difficult when life challenges demanded I think about the future or even the past.

I tried my best to make staying in the moment a daily routine, but I couldn't help but let my mind wonder especially if the circumstances were difficult. I guess I did not trust the process so this was a serious stumbling block for me.

It turns out the bible promotes the same thing i.e. to be present in the moment the difference is the bible tells me that I should handover my circumstances to the one who holds the universe in his hands so he could intervene on my behalf. When I tried this process the bible way I found it  easier to be present in the moment so I can evaluate the circumstances with a clear head.

2. Self confidence

I generally do not have a problem with self confidence. I just hoped to improve it through self help strategies, but when unexplained events came into my life it did not matter  how much self confidence I possessed I just could not overcome some of these events.

It's through these unexplained events that I realized that placing confidence in my own strength to overcome them was not a solution, the solution for me was to place my confidence in someone else greater than me and I realized that for me that someone was Jesus Christ.

Life did not change for the better when I transferred my self confidence to Jesus Christ but it has given me more hope for the future.

3. Positive thinking

The definition for positive thinking is the practice of focusing on the good in any given situation. This was easy to implement in some instances but not easy in life pressing situations. Especially when there is little good to focus on when confronted by life difficulties.

As I increase my knowledge of God through his word I find it a lot easier to think positively despite life's difficult situations.

These self help strategies are good and biblical but they did not work for me because I was using them in exclusion of God. They did not make an impact in my life because good without God is not good enough.

So it does not matter how good anything is for me as long as it excludes God it will never be good enough for me.