Our First Lady has this saying, “I didn’t come to compete, I came to win”. Saying this puts an extra vertebrae in your spine. You say this enough, you might go start a fight. Well, this is what I had to repeat to myself over and over as well as other scriptures in order to go into this interview as a conqueror in my mind. My qualifications mean nothing, my report with this team means nothing. If I go in there with a defeated mindset, I might as well have not shown up. So how did I get this defeated mindset. Here’s how it went down.
I applied for this job at a place I used to work. I left on good terms and did a great job while I was there. I knew someone there and asked them to put in a good word for me. The person responds acknowledging that they put in the good word for me, but they also added that one of the other staff was excited about applying for the position. This one statement was an invitation for Carl (I’ll explain Carl in another blog post) to come knocking on a door in my soul I try to keep shut tight. The inferiority door. Some people don’t struggle with this, and someone as confident as myself shouldn’t either, but somehow it was able to creep in. Anyhoo, I immediately felt like my skills and experience may not measure up to this other person’s. They had more longevity with that company and even held a leadership position.
For a few hours I let this get to me and discouragement almost set in. I recognized that Carl (I know everyone wants to know why I use the name Carl, there is a reason) was trying to get me into a defeated mindset, because that is where battles are lost, the mind. I began to quote the word of God. I read the beginning verses of Joshua 1 and confessed those things for my situation, until the inferiority was annihilated. I hit that sweet spot where there was no competition, I was going to win. So now the P31 parallel.
Verse 20, one of our favorites, many have done virtuously but you excel them all. These are the words of God written by man. If you believe one part of it, you must believe it all. If I declare that I am a P31, and I am, and I put to use the words that I read, I have to, got to know that I excel all other women, hands down. And a woman that fears God she shall be praised. The one thing I left out was the extent of the stellarness of this interview. I was greeted with open arms from the director and those I used to work with. We skipped over the ‘are you qualified’ questions and went straight to ‘this is what to expect’.
We don’t excel other women simply because we’re gifted, talented, the bomb or anything other adjective you may use to describe yourself. You excel all other women because God is with you. He’s a tad bit awesome, so you don’t have a choice but to be a tad bit awesome as well.
References: Proverbs 31: 29-20
