Welcome to the April 21st 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.
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The Story of My Week
On Saturday, I went to what was probably my first full-blooded Nigerian party in almost a decade.
Yes, it’s been that long.
It was interesting for me. The party venue was full to the hilt.
And in keeping with a good Nigerian party, food and drinks were in full flow. You can ask the waiters as much as you want with nobody refusing you.
The waiters moved around like explorers seeking new civilization so you didn’t have to look far before there was one near you to give you whatever you wanted.
The crowd was an older one. And it showed. You had very few people looking at their phones. Most people were looking at everything going on around them.
There was something I loved as I kept my eyes on everything going on around me. You would see the face of a person walking into the event venue looking stern breaking into a smile and then a laugh when they saw someone they knew.
Maybe, it’s because I love the beauty of smiles and wide-grin laughs, I was constantly fascinated by this transformation on people’s faces every time I saw it.
The event was a test of my memory. I saw people I hadn’t seen in over a decade. My mind had to play the role of an ageing application to place the face I used to know into the face now in front of me. And I had also pulled the name out from the recesses of my mind.
The event reminded me why Nigerians are seen as one of the happiest people in the world.
We throw a good party and show all the range of joyful emotions.
Smile, laugh, shout, and dance. The true makings of a merry heart.
A merry heart, medicine for the soul.
Things I Learnt
1- Fight for Marriage: The event I went to was a funeral celebration. Celebration because she died closer to age ninety.
A huge milestone it was. And all her kids and grandkids are all thriving. It was a celebration of life.
But something pricked my heart when I read the short biography included in the church program. She and her husband had divorced in the early 1980s. And so she lived the rest of her life alone.
The sadness in my heart was because she and her husband had spent years building a life that they decided to break up in the later part of their lives.
After I left the event, I called my wife and told her this.
It gave me a stronger resolve to fight for our marriage and make it a love for a lifetime.
Keep the little foxes out of our garden.
2-When it’s too Simple to Question: I facilitated a training during the week. I adopted a strategy I had been working on to deliver the presentation.
I made every slide so simple it would stimulate immediate action.
Why?
Because that is the best way to create transformations that people can live by.
Yes, instead of having to handhold people, people could take responsibility for changing themselves.
After the presentation, it was interesting that nobody asked any questions.
And I understood why.
The slides were structured to appeal to everyday thinking.
It’s not an original strategy. I am adapting something I saw Jesus do.
He made the gospel simple by using everyday examples to explain it.
That’s what I did.
It’s not all training that would lend itself to this.
I am glad that I did it on this one.
Postscript
May you serve people in the best way to make them better. Amen.
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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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