Welcome to the November 29th 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
Recall that at the beginning of the month, I wrote to you from the road as I was made to stay extra at my flight connection city because the boarding staff denied me access.
According to him, I needed a visa or authorization to enter the country I was flying into.
Well, this was one of those times I could flash my Nigerian passport and say "I don't need a visa because of this".
Anyway, he didn't budge even after I called the customer support of the airline to explain the matter to him.
I got a hotel and spent. The customer support I called while at the airport was very helpful. Since he couldn’t get the guy to yield, he put on the next flight.
The next step was sending a claim to the airline for my costs. The whole process was quite frustrating at a point.
One thing I told myself when I started the claim process was that I was not going to play the victim card and claim the boarding staff was been racist.
It’s an easy fallback position - they treated me differently because I am black.
No, I was just going to say the boarding staff did not do a competent job or represent the airline in a good way. I also was going to keep the conversation via email and not resort to social media blackmail.
After almost one month, they came through and agreed with my position. They even agreed to pay compensation
Some people treat others differently because of their race, color, or that they look different but I can't assume everyone is like that.
Sometimes it's just a case of incompetence rolled up into a big ball that hits you heavy on the face.
We can learn to take actions first as what they are before we start looking for the hidden meanings behind people's actions.
I had to keep myself in that perspective.
Things I Learnt
1-What is Christianity Good for?: I got into a conversation with a classmate of mine from secondary school.
He made an off-comment that he had not been in a church for about half a decade. I'll put out some of the thoughts he shared below.
How can I sit in ANY gathering with the likes of these ones making a mockery of my faith with this kind of teachings?
I would rather not hear these things.
To say the truth - I have heard statements in 90% of churches I have attended and I feel, really, that there's nothing else these ones can teach me. - All the same.
I am connected to the Source - I am aligned with The One Who is before all Things and In Whom ALL THINGS Consist (Col 1:17). I have a relationship, with God through Christ Directly.
And I don't need any man, or any of those unscriptural Sunday-Sunday rituals to stay connected.
In fact, as far as I am concerned - Going to Church is a SIN.
We should strive to bring Christ as close to home as possible through preaching the gospel through the life I live. This is the great commission.
I made a conscious effort to fully detach from Church.
I can criticise any so called MOG if he proclaims heresies contrary to what I have gleaned from scripture. I won't allow any of them call me "My Child". I kneel to pray to God, therefore, I wont kneel before ANY man, even my biological father for worship.
You can bring men close to God thru acts of love to your fellow man. What % of Church does charity? What % of the church's collection goes to charity? We serve Christ by giving to those who need it, to to those who already have aplenty - and definitely, Not by taking from the poor. This is where the Church has lost it.
And I won't be part of that.
By the way, he talked about leading his family in worship and teaching people outside the church.
It was a Whatsapp group with people of other faiths in it so I had to carefully present the truth. As conversations like these go, it is wise to know that we may never reach a common position at the end of the day.
But it made me wonder what Christianity is really good for? The first goal of Christianity is to reconnect us to God and have "a people" ready to do the works of God.
Unfortunately, we forget that for there to be a people there must be unity. Unity is different from union. We can be unified without agreeing on anything.
Christianity gives us what we can be unified on. The problem is that a number of us pick and chose what we like from Christianity.
The first-century Church had problems and most of us assume that they were a perfect Church. The Corinthian church had a guy sleeping with his father's wife, the Samaritan church had Simon who wanted to give Peter some money so he could have the same power he had, Apostle John writes to a church leader, Gaius, to highlight the activities of Diotrephes, who loves to be first and spreads malicious nonsense. I could go on and on.
I hurt when a scandal involving any church or church leader comes to light.
But a part of me is also cautiously glad.
God is purifying His bride.
And that is what Christianity is good for - getting the bride of Christ ready for Christ.
We can run away from the Church. No matter how bad things get.
Not all God's kids are going to be good - some of them will be naughty.
But they remain God's kids
2-Rewarding Customers for Trusting us: I had to make a decision at work that involved a fault on one of our properties.
The key thing was that the property was past the cover period that we provide.
Ordinarily, I could push back and tell the customer "we are no longer responsible for faults after this period"
But I thought about something Henry Ford said about why his company introduced warranties before anyone thought of it.
Paraphrasing him, when people see a broken-down Ford car, they don't think "the owner is not taking care of the car", they go "Ford Motors makes crappy cars"
I told the team "we are fixing the default because we believe in the quality of the homes we deliver and we must reward these customers for their trust in that quality even if the default is outside of the cover period"
Guess who was the happiest to get my email? The Head of Sales! One less unhappy customer to deal with.
Beyond the Ford background, there is of course the bigger interest of the Kingdom involved.
It's a case of being part of the faithful ones who "keep their promises even when it hurts" Psalm 15:4.
And we do that in everything.
Even in business.
Postscript
May you chose to live differently in a way that shows the convictions you have in God. And may you receive courage from God to stand in every situation when your convictions are challenged. (Amen)
Tata,
Tola
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