Life is full of thoughts. What do you think about everyday?

Note: This is a very old post published back in 2014 when I was in one of my high successful moments but one of my lowest spiritual states.

Life. Life is full of thoughts. What do we think about everyday? What occupies our thoughts? How we think about our present life determines the way we act and live.

Over the last year a lot has changed in the way I think about every aspect of my life. To be honest, I haven’t given much thought to the experiences that have shaped me. Far too often I have somehow occupied my mind with the things of this world and have distracted myself from the burdens of sin I see all around and within me. Rarely have I spoken about these things. This blog is my platform to explore and share my thoughts.

There is something about writing that makes it easier for someone to say and express their thoughts. Writing is quite different to any face-to-face conversation, video or audio.

This year – 2014 – has been a turning point in my life. From the very beginning of this year, there has been so many changes.

1. I was contacted by a startup company who were in a cool workspace and was invited to come join their team. My first “job” in a company.
2. In the meantime, I was continuing to build a website that I had started back when I was doing my seconday school final examinations. It has attracted a lot of interest from students, media and has recently even got an acquisition offer. It was and is my best masterpiece of my web skills.
3. I was then offered an internship in a multidisciplinary co-working space that would build a community of curated entrepreneurs, innovators, students, mentors, angels and VCs, freelancers, corporate members and artists.
4. While working, studying and building my side projects, my friends and I had entered a few tech startup competitions. We got into the final stages of most of them. The highlight being one of the national finalists of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup.
5. During and after the summer has been the greatest changes. I was working most of the days, meeting talented people, attending events and commuting everyday to the heart of the city.
6. Was part of the founding team of an airline and airport retail industry business which won Google’s startup weekend.
7. Was scouted for a well funded American digital market startup company who provide their services to the fortune 500 companies.
8. Launched another startup website business focused on the secondary school market.
9. Was successful in over 3 interviews against hundreds of qualified applicants for a paid engineering intern position in Europe’s largest and rapidly growing tech event. In which I got offered the position and was their first preference.
10. I was invited to join a startup company who were in a well recognised accelerator programme.
11. As part of my agency business; among other clients we got one of our largest multilingual and multinational client.
12. I was offered equity and the position as CTO in a potentially very successful startup company in the insurance sector.
13. I was asked to be involved in a potentially global startup company focused on the hotel industry and own part of it.

These are just the major events that occurred over the last few months. All these amazing opportunities, all in just under a few months time. Above all these opportunities, the most amazing, most memorable and life changing experiences have been to see the burdens of God’s heart, to have the privilege to share in His burdens and to be taught life’s lessons.

You would think that my life must have been exciting and merry with so much positions and opportunities. But it’s far from it. Exciting, yes at times, but not merry. I have learnt in the hard way the lesson of how true 1 Timothy 6:10 is.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. – 1 Timothy 6:10

I have learnt that anyone can focus so much on success that they barely have time for the person who provided everything in the first place. No time to think about the light that God has given, no time for convictions, corrections and concern for a lost world. No intimacy with God.

It makes me wonder if all the busy life I had, successes one after another and all the worldly excitement for what is temporary was just a distraction. Distraction to take me away from the things that truly matter for eternity. Aren’t we all distracted by so many things that are just here today and gone tomorrow?

To give up most of my positions, work, lose time, the effort I put in, lose money owed to me for my work and to simply walk away from most of my posts was a sacrifice that wasn’t easy. A decision that took a long time to make, but it will be worth it in the light of eternity. Why did I quit most of it? Stay tuned for the next post… Our lives are not about how we live on this present world.

It will not make much difference friend a hundred years from now; if you live in a stately mansion or a floating river scow; if the clothes you wear were a tailor made or just pieced together somehow; If you eat big steaks or beans and cake a hundred years from now.

Won’t matter what your bank account or the maker of car you drive; for the grave will claim all your riches and fame and the things for which you strive. There’s a deadline that we all must meet, no one will show up late; it won’t matter all the places you’ve been, each one will keep that date.

We will only have in eternity what we gave away on earth; when we go to the grave we can only save the things of eternal worth; what matters friend the earthly gain for which some men will bow; for your destiny will be sealed you see a hundred years from now.

– Walden Parker