Blowing Things Out of Proportion

As I celebrated Mom’s birthday this year (April 7), I wanted to build about one of her principles. It’s not something she has necessarily theorized, but it’s one of the virtues she’s exuded that I have observed for a long time.

When she got widowed in 2009, most of my pain was seeing her alone yet other children’s parents seemed to have the joy of twos completing them. I saw her lonely most of the time, and that always brought me to tears.

One time, I wrote letters to married relatives and friends of hers. The main point was inclined to informing them to aid her in whatsoever way they could and not to disappear in their matrimonies. Stupidly, I gave my mother these letters to deliver them. She — of course — was curious, and thus, read them. She was mad! Not that she didn’t appreciate my concern for her, but I had made it feel like we were struggling on the streets as ‘half-orphans’.

“NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. WE ARE DOING JUST FINE!” She rebuked in her voice, yet with a motherly tone within it.

In my eyes, she seemed to need all the help she could get. But I was simply blowing things out of proportion. I made it feel like we were on the streets. And besides, I hadn’t known God as much as she did, or how I do now. On top of being the father to the fatherless, my earthly father had left some wealth that supported us.

My mom has continued to portray this theme in many aspects of life, and I think we too can pick a leaf.

Jesus Himself did not blow things out of proportion. Remember that time while He was asleep on the boat and yet a storm was thrashing the boat left right and center? He rebuked it when he was roused from His sleep, and after all the terror his disciples experienced, all He’d ask was why they were afraid, and why they had little faith!

“Bruh… We were this close to drowning!”

Well Jesus seemed not to be moved by the mere fact that they all had a near death experience, and this is what the enemy likes using against us: exaggeration of such experiences. I’m sure the fishermen disciples had experienced such storms earlier before they met Jesus! So why now did they stipulate death!

See my point!

Lastly I’d like to use the Shunammite woman’s example (2 Kings 4) which is a mix of crazy faith as well. Her son had died and when the first person asked her what was wrong, she said that it was well. When the Prophet’s servant asked the same, again she said, “It is well.”

WOMAN… YOU JUST LOST A CHILD! What’s well about that!

Eventually, the child resurrected. But let’s not ignore the lesson. Even in such a dire situation, she refused to blow it out of proportion. That reaction alone contributed to the reversal of what had happened.

When we refuse to blow things out of proportion, we evoke peace, which is able to flow unto any situation and cause its turnabout. When we refuse to aggrandize situations, we keep them in a position that isn’t too overwhelming for our faith. For example; if we exaggerate a cancer to be deadly, we might think God can’t heal it like He did that headache. But if we look at it as another flu, it becomes a piece of cake.

The book of Revelation itself says when judgement comes, the entire world will look and say, “Is this he who caused all this trouble in the world?” … referring at how small the devil is and how powerless! But is that what we see on TV? No! The devil has blown up himself to be this scary beast and creature with unlimited power in horror movies. And that’s the image people carry, and quake him so much — yet he’s a defeated foe.

If we throw this back to life, we get to realize that we are blessed. Africa has been portrayed as a place of deep poverty and homeless people. A particular white man landed in a place stricken with that, and decided to paint it for his fellows, and yet there’s a different unbiased narrative that hasn’t received an opportunity of being blown out the same way.

Still about life, so what if so and so has become pregnant? Many of us carry the rumors of these tragedies to shame others. We blow them out of proportion without even knowing the actual story behind, and like that setting of yore, we show up to stone the woman caught in adultery, until Jesus asks us, “If any of you is without sin, cast ye the first stone.”

I could go on and on, but I do hope you’ve got the gist of the matter. Refuse to panic over life’s situations, and whatever you’re going through should or must have been suffered by many others in the world, thus, you’re not the first nor last to suffer the same!

So what if she or he has broken up with you? So what if you’ve been fired? So what if you’ve been divorced? Those that aggrandize these end up with loads of shame plus extra bad ideas such as revenge or committing suicide!

Whatever life has thrown you, DO NOT blow it out of proportion. In doing so, you’ll keep anxiety, stress, malevolent imaginations and madness at bay.

If you’re a victim of any of that and are reading this, I sympathize with you. But, it’s going to be okay. It’ll get better. It’ll get easier. You’ll get through it! You WILL! But first, whatever situation it is, do not blow it out of proportion.

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Psalms 89:9 Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.

Psalms 107:29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

1 Peter 5:9b,c … steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. NKJV

1 Peter 5:9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are. NLT