Last week, I wrote about vision – more specifically, the importance of being committed to the vision and carrying it out even in the face of discouragement, and even when you’re the only one who can see it. Yes, the vision and mission God gives to you is yours to carry out, but make no mistake about it – the mission and the journey to achieve it is not for you to walk alone. God did not intend for you to get there all by yourself and certainly not for you to achieve it all alone. He gives you gifts also to share with others – for their benefit and for yours. Follow my analogy for a moment. The vision is a painting. Let’s call it The Mona Lisa. Leonardo Da Vinci couldn’t have created such a masterpiece without his tools in the same way that no person can complete their vision without help, without someone to help create the masterpiece that is the vision. There’s just no way around it, and despite how some of us feel about asking for help or having people help us, there is no shame in it.

All the time, we hear people being described as self-made men and women, but there is no such thing. No one gets anywhere without help, and even if there wasn’t a crowd of people behind you, someone helped you along the way. Someone supported you. God sent you someone, or several someones, to help you carry, if not lighten the load so you could be brought that much closer to your vision. By this, I’m not referring to family and friends, though they certainly have their place. I’m talking about someone to help you get the job done. Oftentimes, when we see people doing the same things as us or in our lane, so to speak, we feel like we have to compete with them. We immediately perceive them as our competition, as opposed to an ally with wisdom. We underestimate ourselves because we believe we have nothing to offer them, and we underestimate them when we limit their purpose to simply be people we envy on our Instagram feeds as opposed to people we could collaborate with. Now, I am not saying everyone you see with a passion similar to your own is someone God has sent to you to help fulfill your own purpose, but I am saying that you never know. We shouldn’t perceive anyone as an enemy simply because their passion is the same as ours. Who you perceive as an enemy could actually be an asset – could be the very person that God has set in place for you to meet.

Sometimes we see someone with an entirely different gift or idea and we admire it and even support it, but we underestimate their ability to help us and the connection between their purpose and our own. But thinking like that – thinking that because someone’s area of expertise doesn’t so perfectly align with that of our own so they cannot help us –  is not only naive, but it is limiting to God. And while God is many things, he is not a God of limitations. As unique as each snowflake is that falls from the sky, that is how unique we are, how unique each of our gifts from God are. They are intentionally different as we all have different things to bring to the table, and wouldn’t it be far more useful to have people helping you with different areas of expertise? All of them with different gifts as opposed to a team of people that all do the same exact thing? We are so used to planning things out, or at the very least, having an ideal way for things to unfold in our minds. However, we must make room for surprises, for blessings, and align our plans with God’s so that he can intervene with His perfect will, because He sees the things we overlook and the factors that never occur to us to consider.

For any of this, in order to know who God has for you – in order to know who is a help and who is a hindrance – we need discernment. The same discernment that illuminated to us the vision. They have to come from the same place and from the same Spirit. That is the only way to know, for sure, that it is from God and it is for you. Just because it’s yours to carry out doesn’t mean you carry it out alone. It just means you carry it out as God leads and the Spirit guides.

I end with a story, with evidence that all I’ve said is more than advice or a theory, but a testament to God’s ability to bring things and people together so seamlessly and perfectly that we have no other explanation but Him. Two years ago, I was sitting in a conference and I heard a voice. A voice I did not recognize and had never heard before, but was drawn to by the Holy Spirit to listen to. I looked after the session for the voice, for the person I heard speaking, but it was to no avail until months later. Long story short, the voice that I previously had no recognition of and no relation to is now my friend and CEO of this very company, Emmanuel. He is an entrepreneur and I am a writer, and yet, our purposes aligned for this amazing company that you know as Un-Associated. Without this, I would not have been brought closer to my vision and he, his and that is only God. With that said, believe me when I tell you that God works in mysterious ways, that help is on the way, and the journey towards your vision and frankly, the journey of life itself, is not meant to be a solitary one.