I love Michael Scott. He truly is the best boss ever, where fiction is concerned, anyway, and he’s easily my favourite character from The Office. He’s always up for a good time. Occasionally, he could be selfish, but he’s genuinely caring. He’s sensitive. In weird ways, he strives to protect the ones he loves. He overestimates his importance to people and sometimes considers his relationships to be more intimate than they actually are. He avoids any situation that would lead to him making difficult decisions. And he has a level of innocence to him.
In many ways, I see myself in Michael Scott.
But that is not the point of this post at all.
In case you still couldn’t tell, I love The Office. No, really, I’d watch it a million times over.
I recently started watching it again, and it’s almost shocking how many new things I discover every time I rewatch it. It’s like when I start to read my Bible over and I see something I never saw before.
I’m currently in the 3rd season (for the eighth time). It’s the season where Jim and Pam, who have clearly been in love with each other since the very first episode, start to date other people. Well, Jim does. Pam simply goes back to her ex-fiancé.
Quite frankly, it’s incredibly painful to watch. Even after seven times of seeing it happen, it’s painful to watch them… settle.
Settle /set•l/
To agree to or to accept something, although it is not what you want.
I know we use settling in the context of romance. We say things like “don’t settle for this in your relationship”, “don’t settle for him/her”, but these days I’m thinking about settling outside romance.
Jobs. Friendships. Life. God.
At some point this year, I reached a quiet resignation with God. It didn’t feel feel like rebellion or doubt — it really, quite frankly, felt like humility.
It was asking for His will to be done, but no, not really, because deep down my actual thought was whatever happens, happens. And in that acceptance, I stopped reaching. I didn’t ask for too much from Him; didn’t expect the miraculous. I simply sat in the middle of my life and let the world roll on without ever fully inviting Him in.
There was a comfort in it, it was a strange kind of peace. It felt like I was being realistic and even mature. I whispered prayers, but they were safe prayers, the kind that don’t risk too much, don’t hope too wildly. I kept Him at the edges of my life. I kept Him close enough to not feel abandoned but far enough away to not be disappointed. And I accepted whatever came.
This is what settling feels like.
But deep down, in the very quiet way the Holy Spirit speaks to me, I knew that wasn’t what He intended.
I began to think about it in other terms; from the place of the one who feels settled for. You know you’re not what they really want, but they keep you around, though. You’re an afterthought.
If God could feel disappointment, perhaps it would come in the quiet moments, in the small exchanges where He watches me choose the world over Him — not in outright defiance, but in something far more subtle.
He hears my prayers, but they’re measured, restrained, like a person careful not to oversalt their rice. He wonders where the Ife of 13 years old is. The Ife who studied in Ibadan, Nigeria, but prayed every night to somehow run into Trevor Jackson. The Ife who wrote to Him daily, trusting for the wildest things.
I acknowledge His presence, but my heart doesn’t burn for Him. And so, He becomes the backup plan, the comfort I turn to when all else falls short.
He waits, though. Patiently. He always has. But perhaps there’s a kind of sadness in the waiting — knowing He is not the first choice, but the fallback. Knowing I’ve settled for Him and what He can do, not out of desire, but necessity. It’s in the way I ask for help but never surrender, the way I accept His grace but never allow it to transform you because I can’t believe how real it is.
From His side, being settled for most probably has nothing to do with a bruised ego — it has to be about knowing the life I could have with Him, and knowing that I’ve chosen less. The very bare minimum. It’s about knowing I’ve settled for safe prayers when He wants to give me impossible dreams. It’s about watching me walk through life content with the mundane when He has wonders to show me.
If He does feel sorrow, it would be in knowing that I’ve settled for a part of Him, when He’s always offered me everything.
During the year, I struggled with the idea of grace. How could someone so good be less interested in what I had to offer, but be more interested in what I could be in Him? How could I not earn this? How could He not consider my weaknesses to determine if He loves me or not?
Because sometimes I wonder if people who mean a lot to me actually like me. But here’s someone who actually l̶i̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶ loves me.
So what if grace wasn’t about deserving? What if it’s something wilder? Something more untamable? What if it was about a love that didn’t measure my worth against my failures? In this case what if was a love that didn’t measure my worth against my inability to show up?
There’s a terrifying risk. Because it means daring to believe that I am worth saving, worth healing, worth redeeming — not because of what I’ve done or will ever do, but because of who He is.
And so, I’m daring to reach with trembling hands and believe that this grace is mine.
But the free gift [of God] is not like the trespass [because the gift of grace overwhelms the fall of man]. For if many died by one man’s trespass [Adam’s sin], much more [abundantly] did God’s grace and the gift [that comes] by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, overflow to [benefit] the many- Romans 5:15
In 2025, I’m daring to dream big while trusting God to fund it.
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