Small Minds
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About twelve years ago, Lady Apostle Sharon Edmond preached a sermon called “I Will Not Be Affected by Small Minds”. Of all the sermons she has ever preached, that one stood out to me then and it still does to this day.
It is so easy for us to allow ourselves to be affected by what others think. How many times have you pushed a dream to the back burner because of someone else telling you that they had failed at what you were about to try? How many times have you failed to go after an opportunity because someone else told you (directly or indirectly) that there was no need for you to do so?
I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie “Fences”, but in the movie, Denzel Washington’s character had been a baseball player. Things didn’t really work out for him, so he came back home to live a normal life, and his son came along and eventually wanted to play ball. You would think this would have been met with excitement and encouragement, but it wasn’t. It was met with much opposition. If you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say that Denzel’s character wasn’t having it. Why? Because he couldn’t see past his own failure. His mind hadn’t enlarged enough to be able to accommodate the thought that his son could and should go on to be better and greater than him. His mind was closed and wrapped around his own failures, so he couldn’t imagine his son having success.
How many times have we seen this? How many times have we seen people do all that is within their power to stop their kids from leaving the small town they grew up in just because they never made it out of the small town? Now there is nothing wrong with living in a small town, but there IS something wrong with using your words and actions to manipulate situations to keep people there when there is success waiting for them somewhere else.
I’m telling you now: Don’t allow yourself to be affected by small minds. Small-minded people will have you sitting down on your gifts and running away from your dreams. You have to love yourself enough to know when it’s time to say “Mom, Dad, Cousin, Friend or whoever – I appreciate you taking the time to share your opinion, but I’m going to go for it because I KNOW I will be successful.” Don’t be the person who is bitter in their older days because they didn’t take advantage of opportunities in their younger days. Don’t be the person who gets trapped in a dead-end job because you didn’t want your family to think you were trying to be better than them. You should be better FOR YOU. It’s not about them.
Say it with me: “I will not be affected by small minds”. Whatever you believe you can have, you can have it. Whatever you believe you can do, you can do it! Remember that.
Have an amazing day today. Show love to yourself AND others. Be GREAT! I speak life to you and everyone and everything connected to you! Catch me tomorrow!
XOXO,
Na’Kole ♥