Welcome to the August 20th 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
This week, I saw some results on some of the targets I was pushing for.
The way the results came, one thing was clear.
Prayer changes things.
Yes, I did the hard work.
But what happened this week was not from the hard work.
Alone.
God through prayer multiplied the hard work.
To create the kind of results I want to create at work, I need more than hard work.
Yes, God has promised to bless the work of our hands.
I don't just want that level of blessing.
I want a blessing that comes from the next level of pushing myself and my faith to a new level.
This is what prayer does for me.
I will keep pushing myself to the levels that require me to trust the power of prayer to deliver my results more than the power of my hard work.
Prayer & Hard-work - my elixir for pushing results to the next levels.
Things I Learnt
1 - Preparing the Next Generation: One of the things I discovered is that many Christian parents relocating from Africa to Europe and North America don't take an active process in equipping their kids to live their faith successfully when they get there.
Why do I think so?
Well, just by looking at the sort of decisions they make regarding simple things like selecting a church.
There are support systems that parents need to support their parenting efforts.
In sequence, they are extended family networks, school networks, neighbourhood/friends networks and church networks.
For most people, "1 & 3" is not available when they arrive in a new country.
"2" might be difficult to build since they don't know the backgrounds of other parents.
"4" becomes the quickest one to get into.
And this is why the choice of church selection is important.
The church must offer experiences that deepen the family values and get the kids engaged early on. They must be able to find connections with kids of their age.
During the week, a mother was sharing her difficult experience and the new direction the faith of one of her kids is taking. Just because they didn't wisely select a church that would help their children's faith.
It reminds me of friends of mine who made a different choice. When they moved to a new state in the US, they changed church because the first church they liked was not catering well for the spiritual needs of their children.
The church was good for them as parents but it didn't have the right support to partner with what they as parents were doing with their kids.
Yes, they were actively involved in discipling their kids.
They didn't just parcel them away to the church. They used the church to complement what they were doing at home.
That's the way it should be.
2-Carrying the Sword & the Trowel: During a conversation with an old friend of mine, she mentioned that she would like my faith-based writings to get more visibility.
According to her, there are very few people that write like I do and do it consistently.
I liked what she said.
The message of life needs to be broadcast far and wide.
There was something else she didn't say that started playing up at the back of my mind.
My business-based writing also needs visibility.
About 2 decades ago, one of the prophecies I got for not just me but also for the next generation of Christian leaders was the uniqueness of our ministry to carry both secular and faith roles concurrently.
We will not operate in a dichotomy.
We will call our work SACRED - not secular or spiritual.
Our work in the secular will be sacred because we will teach and serve in a way that brings heaven's perspective to everyday work.
Our life in the spiritual will be sacred because will teach and serve in a way that reflects a life of intimacy with God.
So, I'm taking up my gauntlet and pushing visibility for my sacred writing which covers secular and spiritual.
All come from one life.
A sacred stream.
Postscript
May you live a SACRED life that honours the secular and spiritual in a way that honours God. 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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