Challenge 2: Find It, Confront It, and Overcome It

I once heard if you eat a watermelon seed, a watermelon will grow in you. Now although watermelon seeds won’t grow in you, there are other seeds that will. They are seeds of life. Sometimes, those seeds come from what others say to us, what we say to ourselves or our experiences. Sadly, we get the bulk of those seeds during our earlier years and most of them are bad. Therefore, because we never deal with those “bad” seeds, they turn into trees and become part of our lives. When we become adults, we wake scratching our heads wondering what happened to the life we were “supposed” to have.

Here’s a personal example. When I was in 5th grade, I was the spelling guru. I never made below 105% on my test. One day, my teacher nominated me to represent the 5th grade class in the upcoming spelling bee. Not a problem, I thought. Besides I was spelling five and six syllable words, which was at ninth grade level. At the spelling bee, I was given a two syllable word and froze when I realized my entire school was in the audience. Nerves took over. I misspelled the word. As the judge quieted the laughter, he convinced the other judges to give me a second chance because I was nervous. Guess what? I misspelled the word again. At that time, my 5th grade mind told me that I wasn’t any good with talking in front of people. So, for 20+ years, I struggled with public speaking. Finally, about 5 years ago, I became very frustrated with my inability to speak in public and decided to do some mental searching to find out why I was this way. My search led me back to that day of the spelling bee. I was able to identify where the problem originated. I then determined what the real problem was (it was nerves, not speaking in front of people). Then, I set out to overcome it by volunteering for every public speaking opportunity I could. Since then, wonderful opportunities have come my way. You wouldn’t believe the liberty I am experiencing because I found the problem, confronted it, and overcame it.

This month, I want you to identify a few areas in your life that you are struggling in: relationships, self-esteem, failure, fear, anger, etc. Next, do some mental/heart searching to find out where those things originated from. Once you find them, confront them (interpret what that situation really meant). Did she really mean what she said about you or was she speaking out of emotions? Did he really intend to hurt you or was it an accident? Lastly, once you find it and confront it, then it’s time to overcome it (do things that will set you free from the bondage).