Proverbs 31 as a professional woman - Part 30

Dear loyal readers, I trust that you’re blessed and highly favoured.I desire to start with success principle ten for Proverbs 31 as a professional woman, but I’m inclined to continue reflecting on the topic of repentance, which we discussed last week.In part 29, I mentioned that we need to repent for the various ways that we knowingly or unknowingly disrupt the success of other people’s lives and that: “In any given context, whether at home or at work, we’re all surrounded by people with different types of gifts, educational advancement, skills, talents, experience, graces and anointing. These are qualities that God blessed each individual with for the fulfilment of their unique assignment and purpose in life.“Yet, jealousy, envy and fear lead some people to waste so much time on trying to use darkness to stop, block, hinder, delay or frustrate others from moving in their Godly purpose."Why? Because of the misguided notion that the other person will 'outshine' them."Since all glory is unto God in all things (1 Corinthians 10:31), this matter of outshining each other becomes a fallacy and the jealousy and envy become a reflection of the insecurity and inner smallness that that person needs to work on.”It is written that God will not be mocked. Indeed He won’t – but today I’m here to address how we as children of God often do things that bring a mockery to God’s name and that we need to repent for it.In the desire to be seen and validated by others, some members of the body of Christ have been showing increasingly worrying trends of people blocking each other because of jealousy, envy and the unfounded fear of someone else being ‘more anointed’.I’m not stating the above with an intention to accuse, condemn or shame any brother or sister in Christ. I’m merely creating a point of collective reflection so that we can assess some of our actions, whether done knowingly or unknowingly – that might lead non-believers to mock God’s name.I’m writing this with a desire to inspire some of you to join me as we repent because we have all sinned and we fall short of the glory of God.Our sin profiles might be different, but whether our sins are committed in our thoughts, our words or our actions, we all sin in various ways and we need to take responsibility because, one day, we will be called to account.Am I perfect?I’m a product of grace upon grace, and I’m the Christian who knows that I need Jesus Christ every day – in everything.If you have been following this column, you will see that I have touched on the topic of repentance since my first two articles titled 'A New Season' and 'Seeing God’s Glory Through My Tears'.In the article titled 'A New Season', I wrote:“I have a complicated come-to-Jesus story that involved a life of habitual sin, rebellion and the type of disobedience against God that – if I were an Old Testament character – His anger would've burned against me."After fighting Him for 17 years, I became born again in 2019 – but my heart was not fully in it because I did it for selfish reasons: I just needed a quick solution to my problems.”In part 11 of Proverbs 31 as a professional woman, I shared that“I had to be transformed, so that I could relate to a topic that deals with transformation. When I got born again in 2019, I thought that I would be transformed overnight. But becoming a new person in Christ Jesus takes time because the Lord has to work on, work out and help you overcome past social conditioning, childhood traumas, adulthood traumas, and the impact of all negative life decisions that we often try to avoid confronting. I have had the opportunity to sit and confront my own toxicity, darkness and bad behaviour. In this way, I was able to confess my sins, repent and ask the Lord to lead me as I desired to become a new person.”I shared all of the above with a desire to inspire some of you into realising that God wants to hear the good, the bad and the ugly because He’s not embarrassed about anything regarding your life.Acts 20:21 encourages us to “turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.”When you repent, you turn away from everything that competes with God’s glory in your life and you make a conscious decision to live a life that brings glory only to Him.Some of the reasons why repentance is important are because God commands it (Acts 17:30), it keeps you spiritually alive (Luke 13:3, 2 Peter 3:9), it is necessary for eternal life (Acts 11:18) and for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38, Luke 5:32).May today’s article encourage us to reflect and confess our sins to God, ask for His forgiveness, repent and receive more of His love, mercy, goodness and grace instead of punishment and destruction. May we forgive ourselves and seek the forgiveness of those whom we have hurt as well.In God’s love and out of His mercy, may His light enlighten us about salvation and reconciliation to Him through our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1).May God give us grace to make the right decisions that glorify Him.Remain blessed and encouraged by God’s love.Shalom.DISCLAIMER:'Proverbs 31 as a Professional Woman' under the theme 'Embodying and Manifesting Godly Wisdom, Success Principles and Effortless Femininity in the Workplace' is not posited on trying to read the professional woman into Proverbs 31 because this will produce an absurd result. However, I have opted to take a principles-based approach that widens the scope to be applicable to any professional woman – regardless of her age or status.This column has previous articles titled 'A New Season', 'Seeing God’s Glory Through My Tears' and 'Proverbs 31 as a Professional Woman' (the introduction as well as parts 1 to 29) – all published by Namibian Sun newspaper.I welcome your comments, inputs, queries or concerns. Kindly address them to spirit.soul.body24@gmail.com

Proverbs 31 as a professional woman - Part 30

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-04

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Proverbs 31 as a professional woman - Part 30

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-04

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