I have been travelling for a while; Port Harcourt to Calabar to Obudu back to Port Harcourt and now I’m in Lagos. I have hit new levels of tired in the past two weeks.
Right now I am attending the Nigerian Bar Association’s Annual General Conference as a rapporteur and I think I am working on reserve. I’m wondering what I can do to regain some strength even though I’m working a really tight schedule – 8am to 10pm everyday till Friday?
I would appreciate it if you could say a prayer for me.
I love to pray – really. To have conversations with God and just tell Him about stuff. Nothing is off limits. I talk to Him about everything – that I feel He needs to know. And that’s the problem. There are just some stuff that I just won’t let God touch. It’s funny, but it’s true. This week’s Cafe Chat question just brought a rueful smile to my lips.
There is nothing too small or too big for God to concern Himself with; my parents told me that and I honestly belive it. But how come there are some things I’d rather not talk to Him about? Before I go much further, let me share this week’s question:
God’s Word tells us that we can pray about “everything”; however what are some things in your life that you do not pray to God about? (You can tell about a specific situation, or give a general answer). Why don’t you pray to God about what you named above?
OK. First I’ll mention what I don’t like to pray about then maybe you could share what you don’t like to pray about?
Whenever I’m in trouble because of my foolishness, I stubbornly refuse to pray. I have this funny (and frankly stupid) idea that since I got myself in, I should get myself out. And then I proceed to try to do just that until it’s almost too late. Why do I do that?
I honestly don’t know. I think it’s tied to the fact that I am something of a control freak, I like to think that I can handle things myself. So I decide to pray, and I pray about the state of the nation (yep, truly), then I pray for my parents and my family, my friends, ask for leading for the day and meanwhile I am in hot water but don’t mention that.
Then sometimes I just feel there really isn’t much He can do. No I’m not being blasphemous. The thing is I got myself into trouble so I feel I deserve the consequences. There are some processes it’s just impossible to reverse…
So many reasons but I think they are just the reasoning of a foolish heart. Maybe it’s pride at the heart of everything…who knows? But I know so with His help, I’m working on it. What do you need to work on in your own life?
Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
courtesy Hymns.me.uk
I have always loved that hymn; over the years it has meant so much to me. I’d close my eyes and sing or hum it; and as tears roll down my face, I’d feel the peace of God sweep over my being. What a privilege to be able to say in the midst of troubles, sorrows and deep chasms of confusion ‘it is well with my soul’. That no matter what I face, I know my soul is fine.
The past week was particularly hectic and as a whole, the past couple of months have brought me close to breaking point. Just when I am about to get to that point where I can sigh and say it is well with my soul (and truly mean it), I take another hit. But you know what? I know my Redeemer lives. And even if I cannot bring myself to sing it right now, I know deep in my heart, it is well with my soul.
- Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 (NLT)
Lately I’ve been feeling so tired and I can’t even explain why. I am trusting the Lord to renew me in my inner man. This week, I am trusting God for rest; I don’t know how possible that is going to be because this week I am away from home trying to get new clients for my blogging business. Things look promising but it’s going to be a lot of hard work. That’s why it has to be the a miracle from God. He can do anything. When I was at school I used to pray that He double (and even triple) the hours I had to sleep. I don’t know how to be specific this time around but I’ll just trust him to keep renewing me.
For the curious: I’m still doing the 30 Day Neatness challenge and strangely it’s no longer stressful for me. I don’t even need to have my cup of coffee first – imagine!
Rosheeda's Beauty for Ashes
This is a blogger that really inspires me; she displays an openness and availability to the leading of the Lord. Reading her blog, you feel a nagging desire to get to know the blogger better. I followed up on that desire.
I found her to be like her blog; warm and full of encouragement. She is a sister in every form of that word – ready with a word of encouragement and down-to-earth, honest-to-goodness advice.
Knowing her has been a prvilege and I wanted to use this blog to let her know -
Girl, you are an inspiration!
Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies
Mrs V is the nickname we (my friends and I) gave to the lady in Proverbs 31 – Mrs. Virtue. We met once a week to study her life. At the first study, we came to the conclusion that it was not possible for any woman to be that perfect. Then we decided to take a second look especially in relation to our own mothers and discovered that they were living the Proverbs 31 life!
For the modern woman with all the gender issues and women’s lib, it’s really hard to take on all that work and stress especially if the man does not pull his weight – I don’t know if it is possible for me anyway. But we decided on two courses of action; we were going to:
- Try
- Trust God to make us that way
Anyway, we left university some time ago and went our different ways – until Facebook. Through facebook we have been able to continue our studies and encouragement of each other.
I would like to invite you to join us on facebook as we share encouragment with each other. If you are not yet on facebook, it’s real easy to join. Just click on this link.
vintage church pews: ours are not this bad. Honestly
I decided to spend Saturday night at my parents. They were alone in the house and I just thought to keep them company. It had been a hectic week for me and I was praying that by some miracle, I’d be able to sleep in. No such hope. The next morning, my dad came and pounded on my door and reminded me that Church was in 30 minutes so I needed to get ready. Oh yeah, now I remember why I don’t spend Saturday nights at home.
I smiled wryly and stood up, very grudgingly getting ready for Church. I let them go ahead and took my time to savour a cup of coffee. It’s not that I don’t like Church, I just don’t feel it has to be mandatory. But I’m always conscious of that ‘honour thy parents’ thing and I would never disobey a direct instruction without first letting them know why I would not be obeying it. So I went to Church.
The text was from Luke 22:24-62 – Peter’s denial of Jesus. From what I got, it is so easy to betray a loved one. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines betrayal as:
- to lead astray
- to deliver to an enemy by treachery
- to fail or desert especially in a time of need
- to reveal unintentionally
If you’ve ever been betrayed, then you know the hollow feeling it comes with. The Pastor gave a few reasons why he felt it was easy for Peter to betray Jesus.
- Over-confidence. This was the first one. Even when Jesus had warned him, he was just too sure that he could never do such a thing.
- Confusion and Disappointment. At that time, Peter did not know what part of all Jesus had said was true. I mean, the guy had just told them that He as the Saviour, surely a saviour would not allow himself to get treated that way!
- Distance. When all that was going on with Jesus, Peter who was supposed to be like his best friend kept his distance. He followed ‘from afar’.
- Location. If he had not sat by the fire of those people in the first place, he probably wouldn’t have had that experience. He was at the wrong place, with the wrong people; folks who were mocking his master
Going through the list I discovered that it’s really easy to betray the Lord and even a close friend. Sometimes, by not standing up for that person, by keeping quiet when we should have spoken, we become guilty of betrayal. I’m timid. I’ve finally come to accept that. I was not always that way, but I am now. I will not go out of my way to talk about Jesus (and maybe that is a betrayal too), but I don’t think I’ll hear people mocking him and keep quiet. No.
Still, I had quite a lot to digest by the time I got home from Church. I had to say a quick prayer of forgiveness. I even learnt 3 things to do so that I don’t fall into betrayal
- Keep close to Jesus (read my Bible and Pray)
- Avoid bad company
- Divine positioning – putting myself where God wants me every-time.
I might have gone to Church grudgingly, but I was grateful by the time I got home. That doesn’t mean though, that I’m not going to try to get out of going to Church next week. I think I have enough lessons to last me two Sundays.
How does one go about attracting courage? I started my business fully in April of this year and have had quite a number of clients. I create and manage blogs they are either 
too busy handle themselves, or lack the know-how to manage.
Anyway, I was sitting at that cafe I love to visit, and for some weeks now each time I go there I see the vast potential! Not just for me. I know the owner needs a blog. How to convince her? I sit there day after day, sip their coffee or try their salads; enjoy the samosas or revel in their cheese cake (simply delicious!!!) and with each bite (or sip) I try to plan out the conversation in my head. Why can’t I just walk up to her and tell her about what I know she needs? sigh.
If the law of attraction really does work, I need to start attracting some courage real soon.
On a different note, I layed my bed again today. No, don’t laugh until you read this post. I had padded into the kitchen, made a cup of coffee and was sipping it when I remembered and ran back into the bedroom to make that bed.
I was reading a novel this morning where there was this extremely neat lady who was studying an untidy man and envying him his ability to be gloriously untidy, with abandon! OK. It’s obvious of course that I was not only reading fiction, it was romantic fiction. Neat people NEVER envy untidy folks, if anything; they are smug about being so perfect. [From the tone of this post, it’s easy to know that I’m not one of the neat ones]
I have tried so hard for years to learn that art of neatness…if you do not think it is an art, try being unwillingly untidy. My mum complained and moaned; it just wouldn’t work. I tried for my mum; no progress. I tried to be tidy for my fiancé; even worse. So I just gave up. I really couldn’t be bothered to iron my clothes before putting them on neither could I be bothered to fold away my clothes after taking them off. As long as I could do clean, what did I care about tidy?
But it bothered me a lot. Made me feel like some sort of failure (I like to think that I can do and be anything I set my mind to). I even spoke to God about it, but somehow, I just couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. See, it would have been fine if I actually loved being untidy. But I wanted to be tidy almost desperately. Then, something happened a few days ago.
My mum usually complains about how I didn’t do this in the Kitchen or how I did that in the living room; somehow, I never seem to get things right. Or that’s what I thought. Well, a few days ago she let it drop, veeery casually you understand, that with all she’s seen of me in the past year I’ve been home, she’s confident that I would make a good homemaker!!
Now, from an African woman, that’s high praise indeed. From my mum? I was working on air. But I couldn’t help but wonder why she had so much to complain about if she felt I was doing fine. I guess that’s how mothers are – when it comes to training their daughters, they aren’t ever satisfied. But that comment made me think; if I could get a hang of this housekeeping thing, maybe I could manage the neatness thing too.
So, I decided to try once more to be tidy; this time around, for me. Not for my mum and definitely not for my fiancé (he’s supposed to love me the way I am and that’s not just romantic fiction). I read somewhere that if you do something consistently for 30 days, it becomes a habit. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to consistently, for the next 30 days, make my bed each time I get up in the morning. I usually jump out 
of bed and hit the floor running, but I’ll take time out. If I can master that, I’ll try hanging or folding up my clothes. It doesn’t seem like much, but for me it is. I’ll tackle this neatness thing one chore at a time. [Maybe I should stop thinking of them as ‘chores’]
This is what I call my 30 Days Neatness Challenge!
I started yesterday and when I worked into my room after a hard day’s work, I had a broad grin on my face as I sank unto my made bed. I guess my dad is right; as you lay your bed shall you lie on it.
I got this in my email and it really spoke to me so I decided to share it here. I cannot verify the authenticity of the source but the message is authentic enough so read and be inspired!
- In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
People ask me, what is the purpose of life?
And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven..
One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body– but not the end of me.
I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act – the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one..
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
I used to think that life was hills and valleys – you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on..
And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain. But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.
Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder.. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when my book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don’t think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know you more and love you better. God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do.
That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
