You will surely get it!

Brexit!

That’s the word on the lips of the world now. And rightly so! Its ramifications for the global economy are yet to begin to play out fully, but they are bad enough already. Indeed, I was saying to a friend yesterday that it’s all a bit much – by which I meant that if you are paying attention to what is going on in the world, too many things of quantum significance are happening at the same time. From natural disasters, to terrorism, to the crash in oil prices, to this… to that, and now to Brexit! The question on everyone’s minds now ought to be ‘what next?’ …for surely, many ‘what next’ situations are yet up ahead. These are the end time’s people! And it is irrelevant if the end times last ten years or a hundred. In the scheme of things and from the eternity perspective, it’s irrelevant. All that matters is that we are prepared for the end.

I am not about to launch into an economic expose about the Brexit debacle, but it provides the Launchpad from which I will be sharing with you today. Actually, what got me thinking about Brexit was the fact that I find myself at the airport, all checked in, a whole two hours too early for a local flight. Thankfully my children whom I am travelling with both came with their laptops and so beyond the initial ‘So why did you make us leave so early, mum?’ I have not heard a peep out of them so far, lol.  What has my arriving early got to do with Brexit? I will explain. Just give me a couple of minutes to laugh at myself again, lol.

Any way…. I was supposed to have been on the 7am flight this morning but somehow or the other, by the time I gave my secretary the go-ahead to confirm the tickets, that flight was fully booked so we had to reschedule. I was very intent on not finding myself spending three hours in the proverbial Friday rush hour traffic however, so I made up my mind to leave really early. What I didn’t think through was what would happen if my traffic projections didn’t hold. So I harassed my children into packing and left home this morning with very stern warnings about their making sure they were ready to leave the minute the driver arrived to pick them up. Darling children that they are, they complied (like they had a choice, lol).

They were in my office at 1pm prompt, but it turned out that the lady making the dress my daughter would wear at the wedding we were travelling for arrived at the house after they had departed. We therefore still had to wait for her to get to my office. I remember the strange look she gave me when I repeated emphatically that she must arrive before noon. That was probably the Holy Spirit asking me what I was thinking, lol. Well, much as I had told her the children would leave home at noon, I’m guessing she had it figured that this was too early for people trying to catch a local 5pm flight and so rather arrived at 1pm.  Well, we finally left for the airport at about 1.40pm.  And what do you know? The road was so free that it might as well have been a very early Saturday morning. We arrived at the airport at 2.40pm and despite my best efforts to drag my feet, the check in counter was free and we were all done and settled in the waiting room at 3pm. Sigh! Where am I going with all this? Please be patient with me, my friend.

As I sat for the first few minutes trying to figure how best to make use of time which I knew would NOT pass very quickly if all I did was count the minutes, the British Prime Minister David Cameron came to mind. I burst out laughing as the popular cliché, ‘Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it’ also then came to my mind. Are you familiar with this expression, sis?

We all know, as he readily admitted, that PM Cameron didn’t wish for or conceive that Brexit would go through. Indeed he was so sure it wouldn’t that he clearly didn’t make room for what the implications of an ‘exit’ vote would be. If he did, he might quietly have gone on with the business of the day for yet a while longer, or perhaps he would have adopted a different engagement level and strategy that would have shifted the vote in favor of a ‘stay’. But like I said, this is not about global politicking and economics. It’s just that we have to sometimes question the things we press forward towards, because when we do get them, there are oftentimes many other unforeseen implications and/or complications that we then have to deal with or live with. The British PM finds himself having to resign his position…which was not part of the plan; and yours truly… for all my unwarranted hustle and bustle, now find myself with seemingly unending time to kill in an airport waiting lounge. And you know what? As VIP as the lounge I am currently sitting in is or may get, an airport lounge is exactly ultimately just a lounge and not the most comfortable place to be. Thankfully though, the Lord has helped me redeem this time, and rather used is to give me a message for you and I, sis. Praise the Lord!

Ask yourself a few questions, sis. What are you asking for that is consuming your time, thoughts, prayer life - without a corresponding question to God as to whether that is His will for you? What are you desperately pressing forward with, despite signs and counsels for you to ease up a bit? What are you seriously trying to orchestrate because it seems to fit into some picture of an outcome that you desire for yourself? What are you putting everyone around you under pressure for because you have already framed what the outcome you think you need or desire is?

Do you know what happened in my case? Well, apparently there are some major church conventions happening this weekend all along the same axes on the major expressway into and out of Lagos. As a result, the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) had been proactively sending out bulletins, emails, tweets, jingles, etc advising people to take the alternative routes which they also very graciously proposed in order to minimize the anticipated traffic gridlocks. And apparently, everyone - save for myself, had seen those announcements. So as I was busy moving my earth to make sure I didn’t get stuck in traffic, they had gone ahead to prime the people who would have constituted my traffic, to have them take alternative routes.

Methinks if I had paid more attention to the prompting’s of the Holy Spirit, I might not have been in such a hurry. And how like God the actions of the FRSC were. I mean, think about it sis… isn’t this how God goes ahead to make a way for us where there seems to be no way? Isn’t this how, when we are busy doing our best to help Him get the results we desire, He is busy working behind the scenes and around us, trying to resolve the things we think are in our way. Isn’t this like Him to have thought out the things that are for our good well ahead of us?...to have caused people to change their plans to accommodate what His ultimate purpose for us is? Isn’t it like our amazing father to go ahead of us and make crooked path straights? But when, as I was, we are so focused on smoothening those paths ourselves, we miss the signs that He has already finished what we are trying to start, don’t we sis?

Hmm!

I can almost see the wheels turning in your head sis. And I can so relate. You see, among the best of us, we do this every so often – my very self included (Just so this doesn’t sound like a first for me. Far from it, lol). The best part however - and this is what I want to leave you with, is that the very self-same loving and gracious Father God that we serve does not condemn us when we run ahead of Him. He just smiles and shakes His head and immediately instigates a course-redirect. Yes sis, He knows how to extract the treasure in the muck. Ever before we come to the place of acknowledging that we miscalculated, He begins to orchestrate things such as to still bring glory to Him – if we would hear, and if we would yield. And I can say this comfortably and confidently because even in my over-extended airport wait, He dropped an expression in my spirit that then had me pull out my laptop and begin this post, right?  

So sis, this is God using what was my miscalculation to redirect me to one of my assignments that I have otherwise allowed busyness to make me neglect. And I believe I haven’t just written an article for writing sake. No! What has happened is that I have yielded myself to allow the Holy Spirit minister through me to me, and to you. But as you read, there is a next step sis. What God now needs you and I to do is to introspect, sis. God needs you and I to reflect on our lives and the things which we currently are allowing to constitute pressure points in our lives. He is asking that we reconsider the things we are asking, praying, believing, and over-extending for; and He is reminding us that He is in control and will work things out in His own time and way. He is demanding that we reexamine where we are unduly exerting pressure on ourselves, for we might just get what we are asking for…but if those things don’t fit into His own picture, we will end up in regret.

Sis, He is however also asking that we be at peace concerning any mistakes we may have made as a result of our anxieties, and He is assuring us that He is more than able to bring beauty out of the ashes of our mistakes. But He wants us to grow sis, so He is asking for an increased measure of intentionality about letting Him captain the ship that is our daily lives, and steer us aright continually. He is reminding us to get up each time we fall sis, for His everlasting arms are ever around us, ready to catch, to help, and to uphold us.

More than anything else, He is saying that the only thing we need to press into is Him. He is saying that as long as we are pressing towards His presence, seeking His face, His will, His way and His glory… then it means our hearts are asking for the right things. And once we are asking for the right things, we will get them sis. As long as our every effort is diligently directed towards entering His rest and giving Him glory, we may just….no, scratch that… we will surely get these. That is His word isn’t it, ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and every other things will be added unto you’? It sure is sis. It sure is.

Personally, I am grateful to God for loving me enough to constantly be my Help and Guide. His same help and loving guidance is always and ever yours too sis. It is with this confidence that I assure you that God will never give up on you, even as He never gives up on me. There is no need to be careful what you pray for when you pray for more of God – more of His presence, more of His will, more of His way, more of His glory. In the end, we will get it sis… that heavenly crown of glory for all eternity? We will get it in Jesus name, amen.

Be blessed sis…. For you surely are!