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Finding Your Purpose In Christ
I remember several years ago when I heard for the first time that I would somehow end up in ministry. I was ten years old and my life ambition after watching Commando and Rambo was to become a soldier, I would use my mouth to make the sound of an AK-47 and my finger to form the shape of a gun while running around the house shooting everything I could.
My parents understood I was young and would eventually change my mind as I grew older, so they let me be. We were attending a church in Mali, Faith, and Authority Center my mother was the church typist, a choir member, and a very serious born-again Christian.
She made sure we all went to church for all the available services I was in the children’s church, a member of the children’s choir suddenly one of the pastors of this church, and a sound Sunday school teacher who sometimes interpreted for the founder of the church announced to some members that he would be starting his church inside Bamako High School. He was a teacher at Bamako and God had called him to start his ministry he needed some key members who were on the same frequency as him at the current church to pray along and join him if they felt convinced to move with him to this new church.
My mother loved the way the man taught scriptures and I believe she was one of the first to sign up. Some Sundays later, we were taken to this new church inside a secondary school classroom by my mother I remember being driven to church that Sunday by my late father who was born a Christian but had become a sceptic while studying in Germany. To my late Dad, there is no God, all the men of God in the world are scam artists who play on people’s intelligence to fleece them of their hard-earned money through tithe and offering while milking the natural need of the unenlightened mind to gather together to meet their need for social security, social engagement, and social interaction.
The reason he drove us to church on Sundays was because he was able to have the quiet house to himself for some hours while we were away When you have five children between the ages of twelve and one, and you all live in a three-bedroom flat, you can imagine how crazy the house can get.
My father had also been plagued with this migraine headache for many years, the medical experts in Germany recommended that he needed to use migraine glasses to control their frequency. The few hours of peace and quiet were always precious to him even though he never believed in God he took us to church for his own interest.
One Sunday afternoon, he was supposed to come and pick us up from church at around 11 AM but we didn’t see him. The pastor of the church offered to drop us off at home when we got home, the pastor who was also a Chemistry teacher by profession and knew my father in a professional capacity (They were both teachers and they both mark WAEC scripts annually) decided he would come into the house with us to say hello to my father. When we got in the house was pitch dark and quiet every one of us knew what that meant My father was going through one of his migraine episodes and we needed to be as quiet as possible because noise aggravates the strange headache. My mum told the pastor he wouldn’t be able to see my father because he was not feeling well, and the pastor was taken aback. The usual approach was to call pastors to pray when you have a sick relative, especially if you believe in the pastor’s anointing. How could you have a pastor at your doorstep while your husband is lying down on the couch with his hands on his head making strange noises with tears streaming down his eyes and tell the pastor to go away? The pastor asked if he could help with taking my father to the hospital and my mother told him it wouldn’t help. The migraine spells come by themselves and they stay as long as they want and then leave by themselves after a few days or hours depending on their mood. Drugs were a hit-and-miss but he had them in the first aid box in the kitchen.
The pastor asked if he could at least pray for my father, my mother said the sight of him would only infuriate my father who is a very private person and did not want anyone knowing of the condition apart from his close family members. The pastor, realizing he had exhausted all the possible avenues to see my father or be of help decided to take his leave.
I was standing right by the door, he then turned to me and said “I know you are young but you have the Ephod on you like the Samuel of the Bible and you must wear it quickly for the sake of those who are sick and suffering around you” I had no understanding of what he said but I nodded my head as if I did.
The pastor left I went to the kitchen, got a cup of water, and took it to my father he drank it without argument and the headache left immediately. The next morning, he was the one that woke us all up for morning devotion he led the morning devotion throughout that week. My mother, who usually led while my father dressed up for work or slept or went to warm his car was surprised by his sudden interest in the things of the spirit but she kept it to herself. After the church service the following Sunday, my mother shared the testimony with the pastor the pastor looked at my mother and told her to make haste in bringing my father into the knowledge of God however she could. He said the path before him would be full of a lot of struggles and pains but if he gives his life to Jesus and receives the Holy Spirit, he will be guided into a better future. For several days, my mother didn’t know how to explain what the pastor said to my father, intelligent people are usually difficult to reason with, especially if they feel they are superior to you in knowledge.
During our morning devotion one morning, my mother stylishly preached on the importance of having a relationship with Jesus beyond morning devotion. She later summoned the courage to talk to him when they were both in the room about the importance of having a relationship with the Holy Spirit and the higher life of great benefit that he could have in Christ. My father took offense at my mother’s words he was indeed the sole provider for the household and he wondered how someone he was feeding and providing for could have the guts to be talking to him about becoming born again and the benefits of it.
To him, my mother was not walking in that benefit herself and had no right trying to sell medicine that was not working for her. My father stopped joining us for morning devotion from that day he went back into his scepticism. At one point, he banned my mother from going to church and forbade all his children from doing the same. The more he turned his back on God and forced the family to do the same the more he struggled financially.
The migraine never came back, he eventually stopped using the migraine glasses but he never made much progress in life. When he was in his sixties, after almost thirty years of struggling with God, my father gave in I cannot tell you the details of his conversion but he met with God through you at a church in Nigeria and he began to grow in his walk with the Holy Spirit.
Some months after this he was appointed as the Special Adviser to one of the state governors in our country things got better for him after that.
This man who had worked as a teacher, and later went back to school to study law before joining a bank and starting several businesses which failed suddenly began to do well in life.
One morning, he woke up and joined a political party when I asked him why, he said the Holy Spirit told him to join because he would make an impact through politics I didn’t believe him at the time and even told my siblings that he joined because of some of his friends and not because of any leading of the Spirit, I was wrong he became the deputy governor within two years of registering and later the state chairman of the political party before he died As his son, I learned a lot from his life I usually wonder if he would have continued to struggle if he didn’t give his life to God or maybe somehow he would have achieved all the things he achieved in the last year of his life regardless of his walk with God I usually wonder too if he would have been greater in life if he had yielded to God when he was told and didn’t struggle for over thirty years due to his ego.
I am writing this to you because I heard your teaching on the destiny we have in Christ and your insistence that it is different from the destiny we have outside of Christ I don’t think many Christians know this or understand it but while you were teaching the story of my father popped up in my mind and I decided to share.
Thank you for teaching us to become sons and not to depend on other people to relate with our Father by ourselves God bless you, brother Gbenga
PS: I got this letter and decided to share I am grateful to the Holy Spirit for making my path and that of the man whose son shared his story cross at a meeting we held years ago while I was at Ogudu, in Lagos State.
The man had just crossed the age of 60 and his life was a series of failures and pain. We prayed together and I told him that was his life the only other alternative would be for him to embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and receive a new purpose through the Holy Spirit. He cried and said a man told him the same thing several years ago but he didn’t believe it I led him to Christ and filled him with the Holy Spirit I also taught him in the early years about walking with the Holy Spirit until he mastered it. His desert became a well-watered garden overnight this is what I know your future in Christ will be like if you entrust Him with your life today. I share this letter as an invitation, an invitation to only those who read it understood it, and found it to resonate with them If you see or know that you have been struggling with God on several issues or one issue, If you have turned to religion instead of relationship ,If your life is at a standstill and you don’t know which way to go at the moment ,If you are not full of the Holy Spirit and you desire to be, If your relationship with the Holy Spirit is in a mess and you desire to reconcile with him ,If you are tired of going about in circles and wondering God when? If you have an urgent prayer request Please send me a DM or a message on 08072744871 (Whatsapp or text) It will cost you nothing and it will save you from wasted years and purposeless living.
-GSW-