Welcome to the September 19th edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
The Story of My Week
Our wedding anniversary was this week.
One thing I notice nowadays is that so many people are going online and talking about how to make your marriage better.
Even people who are married for less than 1 year.
Once you add years to your marriage, you start to get a sense of how shallow some of the advice pedaled out there is.
The only advice I can give from our years of marriage is the need for both of you to throw away the keys to the door immediately you get it.
The first marriage assessment my wife & I took after almost a decade of marriage indicated one thing - opting out was not an option for either of us.
According to the older couple counseling us, this mindset is a strong foundation to build a marriage on.
No exit plan means we both commit to doing whatever it takes to make things go great for us to both remain inside.
And that's the only thing I want to share.
I also decided to share a little fun video I did for our anniversary.
You can watch it here
Things I Learnt
1-No Safe Place to Raise Christian Children: A father in Sweden wrote to John Piper for advice on how to deal with the problem of the state taking the responsibility for the education of their children from the parents.
The educational system is pushing a humanistic curriculum that incorporates themes like the LGBTQ, Christian schools are practically illegal and homeschooling exemptions for religious convictions were outlawed.
The state can take away your children if you don’t want to be part of the educational system.
The foundational responsibility for child education is that of the parent. Due to limited knowledge in the family, the parent can co-opt others to help - this is where schools come into play.
When other institutions start overreaching beyond their role as helpers supported by the tools of the state, parents need to build a learning system for their children that runs parallel with the school education system.
The goal is simple - build a Christian worldview that counters the perceived indoctrination going on in school.
As someone who grew up in Nigeria where religious education was part of the educational system, this approach has created a certain mindset.
Parents who relocate from Nigeria and nations with similar educational systems to countries with the humanistic educational system are sometimes oblivious of the new worldview that the schools are planting in their children.
They are therefore raising their children the way they would have done in their countries of origin. A new model is required to counter the humanistic indoctrination in some of these countries.
But this is not a soapbox for saying the educational structure in countries like Nigeria is better.
It raises a breed of people that Christians in the West praise more often than they ought to.
It’s the morally insensitive Christians, who assume that because he or she has been part of an environment that supports religious expression, he or she has the full expression of Christ.
They love Christian-themed activities but see them as a means to an end and no more.
I smile when Christians from the West tell me that there must be a huge revival in countries like Nigeria because of the large crowds of people that show up for Christian events.
Most of them are just going with a flow. Something they caught since they were in school.
The right model of parenting even in countries like Nigeria can address that.
There is no safe place to raise Christian children.
Not in the humanistic western countries.
And not in the more religious accepting countries.
As parents, we cannot delegate our job.
We adapt it to the environment we find ourselves in.
2-Misunderstood Prophecies: I was reminiscing over a couple of prophecies that God had spoken over me and I realized one thing.
It's impossible to completely understand how a prophecy is meant to be fulfilled - no matter how straightforward it may sound.
The only thing we can do is make the right decisions every day. The collection of the right decisions made will create the right environment to fulfilling the prophecy.
A simple example is Joseph.
When he told the dreams to his family, they interpreted them in the way they understood them.
According to them, they thought Joseph would become the head of the family – something the brothers could not go with since they outrank him.
But that was not God's plan.
Joseph reached the full plan God wanted by making the right choices every day.
And that is all we can hope for.
We understand prophecy better when we look back at where we have been.
Trying to analyze prophecy forward to define future actions can be a waste of effort.
The true effort is in making everyday choices that make God happy.
Make the effort.
Postscript
May you continue to live under the banner of the Almighty. May the Name of Jesus be the sanctuary you find rest in. Amen
Tata,
Tola - The Everyday Disciple
I help Christians like you who want to live intentional lives incorporate their faith into everyday life so they can make Christ focused decisions in all areas of life and truly live to make an impact and make God happy.
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