Shut The Door Against Yourself and Your Sons

… Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.” 2 Kings 4:4.

This passage changed my life about 20 years back after selling my medical practice and relocating to Ughelli.

If you must break generational poverty, you must not behave and reason at the level of the poor. Poverty is not the absence of money; it is more of the recurrence of certain attitudes.

In most fast growing communities, you will find out that those who sold the plots of land in the area are still poor despite the monies they made from the sales.

Poor people are usually very cynical. They see a trap or a problem in every opportunity. They are very critical of anything you want to do to grow out of the grip of poverty. They like entertainment and crowd. They like ceremonies and entertainment. They usually compete in the acquisition of liabilities and expenditure on entertainment. There is a way they always attract problems and police cases to themselves.

The poor don’t have borders and boundaries, and they also feel that they should have unhindered access to you, your time, and your resources.

The Victoria Garden city in Lagos has restrained access, but just a few kilometres ahead, you will see areas resident by the poor; there are no gates or fences; it’s free access.

1. Before then, I had too many friends and I attended too many activities. I had to shut out some fellows who will be just distractions.

2. Poor people love gossiping, stories, and analysis of what the rich are doing. They can congregate at newspaper stands and analyse issues from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. I had to shut myself from such people.

There are pastors like that; they always peddle stories of what one successful pastor has done wrong or is doing wrong. Shut the door against them. Don’t let those who have wasted their lives help you waste your life. Rich people don’t sent long text messages or hover round and round before making their point.

3. I shut my door against several invitations to ceremonies because I realised from hindsight that the poorest paid workers are the most accessible. As their value and incomes increase, so also the difficulty of gaining access to them.

4. I knew that I had to stop and pick up from below my former status to break the yoke of poverty.

Poor people know how to render unsolicited counsel, that they have not offered themselves. They know how to make mockery of things that they don’t understand in your bid to actualize your vision.

I shut my door to their suggestions. I listened to those who have succeeded in the land and in the area they are talking about.

Shut your door to their distractions. Jealously guard your heart, for out of it spring the issues of life.

God Bless You.