My Book Report (Chapter 13): Every Day A Friday

Chapter Thirteen

Can you believe it?! Every time I read a chapter out of Joel Osteen’s Every Day A Friday I think it's the best chapter and then I read the very next chapter, and it seems to outdo the previous one. What I realized last night (being Sunday May 6, 2012) and today! Is that we aren't to be in competition with anyone. We are simply to run our race the best way we can, to be the best we can be.

Every chapter seems to get better but not every chapter is competing with the previous or the one that is to follow. No! They were all created for one purpose. To show and help anyone who will read them understand themselves and their God-given potential by coming to understand that God is for them and not against them.

Chapter thirteen has been an exciting reminder and revelation to me, my life and my outlook. I was reminded that if I get caught up in what someone else is doing or accomplishing, I won't realize what I'm able to do and get accomplished. And here's the revelation! Anytime we compete with anyone else, we are really in competition with God. For God outlines a person’s abilities. As it’s written, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.” (Romans 12:6 NKJV).
Therefore, who of us can compete and win against the Creator of the Universe?!

I must confess a great pleasure and later an agonizing pain I have experienced. When I first started to walk with the Lord and learn and experience many great things from Him, I came to a cross roads. I saw many things I had in common with the apostle Paul, and I looked up to the Lord in tears and and said to Him, “Am I to be Paul.”

Something dawned on me now. As I progressed from that day nearly three years ago, God never gave me a definitive answer to my question, but He told me along a path that would start to define who I am. Through 3 years of extensive reflection, many falls and many moments of the Lord picking me up and allowing me to pick myself up, I have conclusive facts of who I am. I'm Flavio— a child of Almighty God. No more and no less.

I am me. I am blessed to be me. I am blessed to know God and continually blessed to experience Him in every area of my life. I am me!

There's no one like me. There's no one who can be the best at being me other than me. I may not be as good at many things than others, but I am able, empowered and anointed by God to be the very best Flavio I can be. That isn't just fine with me, that's a relief! Thank you my God!

I know what it is to be in competition with God, with others as well as myself. It's terrible. It's agonizing. It's a lose - lose situation. Therefore, I am recommitting, refocusing, and re-energized to run my race!



My Takeaway:

In a race the runner need not worry about others, but run their race. When the runner decides to look to their left, right or to look back, that's when they stop running their race and start to compete. When it's a competition there's always an approaching risk of failure and defeat. But running your own race will always secure and result in Victory!

Here's God's encouraging word to me, that I share with you all: Keep your eyes forward on the goal and you'll far exceed your own expectations in running YOUR race.

As always...YOU ARE LOVED.