Becoming a Godly Person

Lately I have been thinking hard. The group of kids I am with, just recently named the Sojourners, have been daily challenged to watch our emotions (mainly anger and fear). When I got this homework from Abba, I thought I was going to die. However, I survived to tell the story! It was an amazing experience and I challenge myself to do it everyday. It opened my eyes to how much I can easily get annoyed with my siblings, with my friends, and how easily I lose patience and grace. I cannot say I am fully changed because of it but I can say that it has deepened my perspectives and showed me my weakness. I found this poem I had to memorize when I was in 5th or 6th grade and it turned out to be very helpful. Here it is:

If   By Rudyard Kipling                         

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;

If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

Hopefully, this can encourage you as well! This poem is one of my favorites and I am working on myself with this day by day. It is hard but I think that in the end, not only will you be a woman or man but you will be a Godly person and someone God can trust. I look forward to the day when I become a full grown godly person in Christ!