Years ago, I got chatting with a young man who was planning to enrol for an examination. When I asked him about his preparation, his response shocked me; “I don’t have time and patience to prepare. Someone would do it for me.” I was dumbfounded. I had to start teaching him to learn to do stuff by himself.
Friend, learn to do it yourself. This is the key to personal growth and development (2 Timothy 1:6-7). It helps your creative ability and problem-solving skills. It also helps you to release your innate abilities and develop the right confidence to face future challenges and tasks (Philemon 1:6). If you always outsource your responsibility to another person, that person is growing at your expense.
As a church member or leader, don’t outsource your responsibility to the senior pastor (2 Timothy 3:15-16). Don’t push all the questions to him when you can also think and pray through stuff. When people come to me for counselling, I always ask them if they had prayed and thought through what they want me to counsel them about. If they say they no, I simply tell them to go and pray and come up with their thoughts (Ecclesiastes 10:10, 15).
Counselling must not encourage laziness. Counselling is to supply guidance and perspective on how you can solve your personal problems (Proverbs 20:18). No counsellor or pastor can solve your problem for you. They can only guide you. The final decision is with you. If you do it yourself, it would equip you to solve similar and even bigger problems in the future (Matthew 11:29).
What if David had run home when faced with the lion and the bear? He would not have had the experience and courage to face Goliath (1 Samuel 17:34-37). Stop asking people to do for you what God has graced you to do. What you don’t realise is that the person you are asking to help you do stuff also worked on himself in order to be able to help you.
You must come to the point in your life where you take responsibility (Genesis 33:9). That is what makes you responsible. Stop running here and there. Stop asking for quick fixes. It is better to go through difficulties and come up with an answer than for you to chicken out and miss a growth opportunity (2 Peter 3:18). Maturity is knowing what to pass to others and what to do by yourself.
‘Demola Awoyele
Lead Pastor,
Destiny Impact Church
Akure, Nigeria