THERE IS MORE TO THE VISION

I remember going through such a hard time in my life. It was over 6 years ago, and I was in the final year of my Computer Science degree. This was the career I had chosen for myself. Even though I did not know anyone in the same field, I did enough research in my matric year, and I was certain that was what I was going to study. I was accepted for this course and began my academic career without any major issues. I did well in my first and second years, but the third year became very challenging for me. A great deal of doubt, fear, sadness, and anxiety overwhelmed me. I began with questioning whether it was going to be possible for me to graduate in that year, then my ability to make it past the interview stage if I did graduate, and then my ability to excel at my job if those two steps were successful. The negative thoughts never ended. They got so intense that they began manifesting in my academic results. I barely made it in the first semester, and I failed a major subject in the last semester.

The problem was not just my academic life. I was so unhappy, felt empty, and was dissatisfied with my life. I wanted to find God and know Him for myself. I decided to do a 21-day Daniel fast that new year, asking God to reveal Himself to me and show me his purpose for my life. I had a few prayer points written down as I began my prayer fast, but at the top of the list was a question about my career. I remember waking up to a dream on the 22nd day, the morning I was going to break my fast. In this dream, I am sitting at home in the rondavel, but I am sitting behind a desk and a computer, and it looked like I was working.

In the same scenario, I see myself praying for people, calling upon the name of Jesus Christ, and they were delivered. It was such a strange dream for me because that is not how I would normally pray. Even as a young adult getting to know Jesus and pursuing God for myself, I kept to familiar religious and spiritual practices. Nonetheless, I was so excited because I had seen myself behind a computer screen in the dream, and I just knew it was God answering my prayer and confirming that indeed I was on the right career path. I remember laughing to myself and saying, “God, what is this with me sitting at the Rondavel? I thought you would show me a building with the logo of the company I will be working for.”

Three years later, it is early 2021. We are in lockdown and in the middle of a pandemic. I am sitting behind my desk at home doing my work as usual, and then it dawns on me that this is the very same vision of myself God showed me a few years ago after my Daniel fast. I was going through a very difficult time again in my life and surrendering it to Jesus Christ was the only option. There were moments where I felt like my personal problems were going to impact my ability to do my job, but God covered, strengthened, and assured me that He had planned everything and ordained me for that season of my life. This was the very first time I understood well Isaiah 45:2-3. Really, that is what God did for me. He set my crooked path straight. The enemy tried to deceive me and move me from the path God had laid for me.

The path was bent because I hadn’t truly known God, and I thought I was there in my own strength and capacity. I didn’t know that anything that I followed and pursued up until that time was in my heart because God had put it there before I was even formed in my mother’s womb. God allowed me to have this revelation through my career because that was my focus at the time, I wouldn’t have sought or heard Him otherwise. In a time when many people were losing their jobs. God prepared and showed me mine long before it came. Today I reflect on the glory of God and how He has shown up in my life, not only through my career experience but also in my spiritual life too. I grew up believing in God and had never doubted His existence, but I never really believed in Jesus. I was so confident and arrogant in my knowledge of who I thought He was.

I was so proud and boastful that I am Christian but not born again. To me, being born again only meant that you let go and looked down upon African spirituality, and that was not who I wanted to be.

I was so proud and boastful that I am Christian but not born again. To me, being born again only meant that you let go and looked down upon African spirituality, and that was not who I wanted to be. I never thought there will come a point in time where I called and trusted the name of Jesus Christ. It is truly a miracle, Gods grace and love that I have been born again. I share my journey of faith with you not because it has been perfect but to remind those like me who struggle a lot with doubt even after God has assured you of his presence many times in your life. I want to share with you something that God has been telling me recently. There is more to the vision God has showed you and you need to stay close to him and allow him to guide you to unleash all facets of it.

Lately I began to feel like there was something missing in my life. I couldn’t point it out. I know I’m in the right career but began feeling unfulfilled. I began praying about it. Then I heard God say, “There is more to that vision I showed you years ago”. I said what do you mean Lord? He said, “who said you are only doing your I.T work behind that computer screen in that dream. You are also writing. Doing my work. There is more to the vision I gave you”. I realized that I had limited God’s vision to what I wanted it to be. I never thought I would be one to share about God. I feel unqualified even now, for my own journey of faith has not been perfect. I just picked myself up from falling off my purity journey early this year,after two and half years of abstaining from sex. Yet, I feel a joy and excitement I have not felt in such a long time sharing my story because I know the enemy has been defeated. For the word of God says: “For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity” provebs 24:16.

𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘆:Cebisile Mabaso

𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘆: South Africa