TONGUE-TIED: A Dumb Preacher

The journey was from Sagamu to Abeokuta in a commercial bus.

I had the nudge, nay the pressing, to preach the Gospel to the passengers. I made a mess of it. No thanks to Mr. Inertia.

I would want to open my mouth, but fear would almost immediately slap it shut.

Fear of what? That the passengers would beat me up or shout me down? That they would not listen to me or give their life to Jesus? That the message may not be interesting or I may get stuck midway not knowing what more to say? That the driver may start the car tape or some passengers may start some annoying conversation to antagonise or distract me? I don't know.

I don’t know what I was afraid of. Simply, it was fear of the unknown. And that was the tool inertia used to hold me dumb when I should be found speaking for my Lord.

It was getting more and more embarrassing. I was feeling more and more guilty. Minutes ticked further and further away. And the bus covered more and more distance.

I needed to act fast. I devised a method.

I sighted one of the roadside palm trees afar off and decided that immediately the bus got to that part of the road I would suddenly open my mouth and speak, damning fear and all its siblings.

Perfect plan. Well laid out.

In no time the bus got there. Quickly, I opened my mouth. Alas, no voice came out. Fear was faster, it had caught up with me again.

No problem, I would be faster this time around.

I picked another palm tree target. Now better prepared to open my mouth immediately we touched the finish line of my target.

We breasted the tape as expected, I more quickly opened my mouth! Yes, the voice was coming, from the inside! Hallelujah! It would soon come out:

‘I'

That was all I could say, nay, utter, and my mouth immediately stopped and shuttered its intention.

This fear was a good sprinter. It had outrun and overrun me again.

I tried again and again but it never got better than that. I watched with a heavy heart as passengers disembarked at Abeokuta deprived of the message I had been sent to deliver to them.

Blood, pints of blood on my neck! Lord, have mercy.

(Culled from This Christian Race by Abiodun J. Soretire)

BEWARE OF THE PROPHET’S INTERPRETATION: What to Know Just Before You Visit That Prophet

#biodunsoretire

Today, many people run to prophets to see a vision for them. But just before you do that please read this:

And now I [Paul] am going to Jerusalem, drawn there irresistibly by the Holy Spirit, not knowing what awaits me, except that the Holy Spirit has told me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead – Acts 20:22,23 (TLB)

Now let’s move to the next chapter,

These disciples [Tyre local believers] warned Paul – the Holy Spirit prophesying through them – not to go to Jerusalem – Acts 21:4 (TLB)

Contradictions! How can the Holy Spirit draw him irresistibly to Jerusalem in one chapter and in the next He is telling him not to go! Is the Spirit contradicting Himself? No, God forbid! It is those who are interpreting His message that are contradicting one another. And that is what those who run from one prophet to another get – contradictions of interpretation. That is even if the prophets are genuine ones. Fake ones will give an entirely different one.

The number one discipline a Christian should learn to cultivate is the discipline of knowing how God speaks to him regularly. It can be as profound as an audible voice or as commonplace as an inner witness in the spirit. Whatever it is, know that God always want to speak to you personally.

And once that is settled then the ministry of the prophets becomes clearer – they confirm what God has communicated.

Paul could not be confused because God has personally communicated to him His mind. So, when the prophecy came, though wrongly interpreted, the prophets could not convince him to do otherwise.

That the prophet sees danger on your way does not automatically mean God does not want you to embark on the journey. He might just want you to be a bit more careful or prayerful. So, you must know the mind of God for your life yourself.

Note, Paul went to Jerusalem indeed and was almost lynched but God delivered him [and even assured him He was with him], Acts 21: 30-33; 23:10-11. Eventually, the ordeals that followed led to Paul's ministry being expanded to Rome and beyond. Indeed, all things work together for good to them that love God, who are called according to His purpose.

- TLB – The Living Bible

3 WRAPS OF EBA: A Short Prose Narrative on Communication Gap in Marriage

Segun was in the sitting room overcome in two parts. 

The physical and mental exhaustion induced by the rigors of maintaining two jobs a day was the first part. He was a teacher at both a public secondary school and an evening private coaching centre. His work schedule was usually rounded off by six o' clock.

The other part of the exhaustion was emotional. He was fuming at the reception his wife threw at him. 

It was his first day out to work after their wedding. AY had answered his homecoming compliments from the bedroom. She would not bother coming out. And when he endured it and composed himself to demand his right of food, the mistress's response shocked him the more. Without apology she threw instructions at him,

‘Get to the kitchen and check the blue warmer, the wraps of Eba are there. Help yourself to the soup. I really need this sleep so badly.'

His little remaining strength drained from him instantly. He dropped into one of the three armchairs – the one closest to the main door. With head lolled forward and propped on the arms, he fumed in silence like a bottled acid. 

'I have a wife, home since morning. Thanks to her leave. Yet no set table. Not even a warm welcome to rub off the day's demand. Sleep has engaged her in a more important assignment. Imagine! I should go to the kitchen and dish out my food myself! My own self! What does she take me for? Her child? Naughty girl. 

The devastation had taken a toll on him for two hours already. Lassitude now drowned him in the sofa anger had floored. 

It was a quarter past eight. AY was having a sweet sleep on her matrimonial bed. She turned her side unconsciously. Her sleeping lips moved and muttered some undecipherable words for a long second before they were sealed again – a strange reflex for an adult, much less a female adult. Certainly, she was in the middle of some dream.

Back in the sitting room, Segun was still lying on the couch. He was lost in thought, oblivious of the darkness that had crept into the room. Visibility was difficult but then his sight was not here but there, in the mind. The silhouette of shapes and figures in the room, imposed by the protracted power cut of Power Holdings, the Nigerian electricity authority, cried for illumination from a lantern at the very least. Segun's mind was too preoccupied. Out of mind. Out of sight.

‘Tolu was right.’

He was thinking about the torrents of thoughts that always bedevilled him and sapped his strength dry whenever he was in a sulk. 

Just then AY walked into the sitting room quietly and carefully. With her right hand she scrambled for the way until the hand came to rest on the arched back of the two-seater. Her hands ran the arch through its length until she got to the far end of the sofa, opposite the kitchen door. She did not bother to call out to her husband. The absence of the lantern light had its usual conclusion; her man had either slept off on the rug or in one of the sofas.

In the kitchen, she located a box of matches and the lantern. She struck four sticks successively and failed. Each time, the reddish brown spark substance produced flame but the attached uncooperative stem stifled it almost immediately.

‘Ah! Niger! Nothing is of quality again. Gone are the days of the popular and effective triple-picture match boxes,' she breathed her frustration. 

She was lucky on the fifth attempt. Quickly she suspended the transparent glass globe with the side-lever and torched the lantern's wick with the flame. The globe released. The flame regulated. Something told her to check the blue polystyrene food container. Her eyes popped when she saw the three wraps of eba, a food made from boiled and creamed grains of cassava, intact. 

She instantly knew she was in for trouble. What has she done wrong. She started some self-probe. 

For some five minutes, her legs would not agree with her heart on presenting herself at the sitting room for the obvious subpoena. Her eyes surveyed the kitchen aimlessly but vigorously, like the proverbial ear-cut thief. At last she summoned up the courage and advanced towards the sofa-and-electronic-gadgetry room, albeit slowly. 

The light led the way she sluggishly followed. Then she lowered her eyes on the sofa for three. There lay her beloved. He turned in a reflex towards the infiltrating light and his eyes looked horrible when AY zoomed in on them. She has jumped into the river already, fearing the cold now is useless. Though the grim face was highly repellent she drew closer and closer to it. Then she did what she never in her wildest dream thought she would do: she sank to her knees before her cross partner. Her tender hands seduced him to forgive while her mouth quickly laid out her reason.

‘Sweetheart, I'm very sorry. It was not intentional. I was having some headache. So, I took Panadol and a nap to help me up.'

Segun was floored. His seething was stilled instantly, like the soup in an aluminium pot. One pleasant thought made a mockery of him.

‘Women, so powerful! What is it they want they won't get!'

He got up, sat up, helped her up and tendered a complementary apology.

‘I'm sorry too. We are still learning to understand each other. But it cannot go without saying that communication builds a strong home. I wouldn't have felt offended if you had included a sentence or two about your headache in your welcoming words. I would have even forgotten about the food, come around to the bedroom and stroke your hair. And the anointing in my hand would have cast off the intruding headache.'

She beamed. ‘I'm sorry sweetheart. I will take note. But it's not too late for the stroking.' She feigned an headache, ‘I'm still feeling the headache.'

The now love-drunken husband readjusted his posture, like a pastor swinging his shoulders to feel a newly-given designer suit.

‘Makaru ma tarasmiku!' the man of God was in the spirit as his hands descended on the pick-and-drop braids.

AY responded promptly like one being delivered; she wriggled and jerked from head to waist.

‘Ah! Man of God, I feel like falling!.'

‘Maskarururi! Fall! Fall! Fall!'

He tipped her head and she fell, like a pack of Whot cards, on his lap.

‘You are an unusual deliveree; you should fall on your back and not forwards. The presence of your head on my lap is tempting. Get up and let me re-deliver you! Looska!'

How they both laughed at the well-acted home-grown drama. 

AY eventually served the eba with okra soup. They ate their fill amidst teasing and pulling of legs. The drama then proceeded to the bedroom. It was a night to remember.

TAKING STEPS: Things You Must Know to Achieve Your Goals

Life's First Steps

Intense pleasure perfumes the robust mother’s face as she eagerly encourages her son with her beckoning hands. The 100cm-space between the mother and her son was premeditated; just enough for the kid to bridge in the first real assignment for his feet.

‘Will he, will he not?’ the question pounds the mother’s heart.

A minute and a half of beckoning, and plenty ‘Come to mummy,’ then it happens. With outstretched arms like a tightrope walker, the son takes his first shaky step. In the recent past, he had taken such first steps only to return to the lotus position on the ground. The second stride is what counts.

‘Will he weather the storm this time around?’ the Mama looks on with the keenest of interest.

Presently, he struggles with balance and after a while he finds his feet. His right leg rises in the air and lands, the second step. The mother’s heart pumps blood in pints. She unconsciously etches the finish line by an inch or two in exultant restlessness. The other steps follow in quick succession and then he falls but into his mother’s waiting arms.

The overjoyed Mama instantly lifts her baby high into the air in a motherly pride. The victorious son, on top of the world, must be feeling in his little brain:

‘Yes, I made it.’

Really, how many of us do often give our heavenly Father cause for such joy and pride? It is not just about great leaps but goal-getting strides.

Introduction

Goals, long or short-termed, are achieved only when the goal-setter becomes a goal-getter. And the distance between goal-setting and goal-getting can be covered in steps - movement. Not just movement, but appropriate, timely and goal-driven movement. Such movement must have the following characteristics:

Precision

Importunity

Purposefulness

God-factor

Precision

Hear the Living Bible rendition of the eleventh verse of chapter nine of the book of Ecclesiastes,

Again I looked throughout the earth and saw that the swiftest person does not always win the race, nor the strongest man the battle, and that wise men are often poor, and skilful men are not necessarily famous; but it is all by chance, by happening to be at the right glace at the right time.

Whaoh! That is a powerful revelation. You must happen to be at the right place at the right time. Some blessings are just on time bomb; you miss the timing, you miss the blessing. Have you ever heard remarks like,

‘Oh! Sorry, if you had been here five minutes earlier you would have gotten it. I just gave it to that man that just left when you entered now.’

Meanwhile you remembered you stopped somewhere along the way to exchange pleasantries with someone for about ten minutes. How would you feel? Terrible! The time bomb had exploded and the blessing is gone, an event overtaken by time. Just because you stopped to greet elaborately!

Brethren, there are some times we will not need to greet in the pursuit of our goal for it might constitute a distraction,

 ...and salute no man by the way Luke 10:4

This is Jesus giving instruction to his disciples. What a deep sense of urgency this depicts. Time is life. I read an article many years ago and it says, ‘Time is life and you can’t waste one without wasting the other.’

Importunity

Keep moving. Yes? Don’t stop moving. Martin Luther King Jnr, said, ‘Fly if you can, but if you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. And if you can’t walk, crawl. Whatever it is, just make sure you are moving.’ There is an adage in my language: the snail insisted on climbing a tree and it did, because its tongue was stuck to it.

A popular songwriter said: if you are going through hell, don’t stop. He is very correct. There is no bus stop in hell. If you stop there you are stopping at obstruction; you may get hit, charged or kidnapped. Yes, get help if you need to, but never stop. Keep making headway.

A man of God wanted to quit ministry out of frustration. That same night he slept and had a dream. He saw himself attempting to break down a rock with a sledge hammer. After several attempts with no single sign of a crack in the rock, he wanted to quit. Just then a strange fellow appeared to him and told him to try one more time. He reluctantly heeded and hit the rock one more time. Voilà! The rock came crumbling down. He would have missed it at the nick of breakthrough. Remember the cliché: winners never quit, and quitters never win.

I heard of a notable global businessman who said every failure edges them closer to success by helping them discover another way they ought not to do it. Learn from failure to forge ahead, don’t lean on it to hang your head.

Purposefulness

Keep moving I say, but make every step meaningful. Let every stride be a move in the positive direction. No beating about the bush. Remember you are not going to be here all day long. As your hairs are numbered so are your days. Therefore make every step count. Do what you can do while you can still do it but ensure you are doing it right.

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Luke10v41,42

God-Factor

That brings us to the most salient point here, the God-factor. This journey through life is so complex and everything looks so muddled up that it takes God to separate the right from the good and the needful from the useful.

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. I Cor. 10:23

So, what is the way out of the world-sized maze then?

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. Ps. 37:23

That is it! Allowing God to lead the way is the way to go. Like David (I Sam.23:1-14), you must be an ardent inquisitor from the Lord, taking direction from Him on “per-second” billing. If He orders the steps, he will take delight in the way the steps are leading. And this is the ultimate result:

When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Prov.16:7

The enemy is easily taken out of the way for one’s efforts to be abundantly fruitful and one’s goal to the easily achieved. In short, all your brilliant steps and wonderful efforts can go down the drain in a moment of opposition, if this God-factor is taken for granted. Have your forgotten the cliché: man proposes, but God disposes. So, I submit, we must put God first, else we stand the risk of losing all.

SAY IT: That Little Word of Appreciation Can Go A Long Way

I myself appreciated the tie when it was extended to me by my sister-in-law. She and her husband had gone overseas and had bought this seven-pound-something-shilling neck ornament. It has glistering sky blue woolly squares on deep blue background. I carried my neck with grace on the two occasions I had worn it. This is its third outing.

I had had a mild running stomach. I had met a dead ATM on my attempt to withdraw money. And on top of it all, I had had to frantically struggle to maintain my calm at the roadside for twenty minutes or thereabout waving and barking down the taxi that would go my route. Now in the front seat of the destined cab cooling off, I got stuck in a traffic jam.

“Haven’t I had enough troubles,” I thought.

Then an extrovertish man, just coming down from his parked car, looked over the cab’s window at my treasured tie,

“I like your tie. It’s beautiful!” he opined.

“Thank you every much. Thank you very much.” I was all smiles.

And the aftereffect of the timely comment, which had evaded the attention of my family, friends and colleagues that had seen the tie on me, was very pleasant. It permeated every of my cells and defused all the troubles.

Never can tell the effect of a little act of appreciation you show or the small seed of joy you sow.

You need not be a crack comedian to crush frown; one simple or single compliment might just do.

#pastorbiodunsoretire