Remaining thankful for the trust
I’ve been thinking of David for the past two days. I’ve been thinking of David because i mentioned him to my team on Sunday. I spoke of being careless about the tasks entrusted to us and reminded them of David and what Nathan said to him. Early in his reign, Nathan had spoken from God about how David had been picked out of the crowd when he did not seem to be the ideal candidate for the job. He had been taken from the lowly job of following the sheep and elevated to royalty. Okay, so some of you have finally figured out i’m talking about king David. But David at some point seemed to have suffered a momentary memory lapse and this time Nathan came to rebuke him and remind him of where he came from. We won’t go into the details of his shenanigans. Suffice it to say that his sense of awe and gratitude had greatly diminished.
We are all prone to fall victim to the same thing; whether it is outright sin in the case of David or carelessness and even ‘ennui’ borne of familiarity, we often tend to take for granted the thing we had previously celebrated. We are put in a place we never thought we would be, we are entrusted with a task we thought ourselves grossly unqualified to handle, and we rejoice and think what a high honour. Very soon familiarity creeps in and the sense of awe diminishes; very soon we get busy, we get tired and the very thing we were so grateful for can easily become a burden and we begin looking to shift the responsibility elsewhere, we complain about all that it is costing us. Sometimes we treat it very casually indeed, it is a slow and sometimes abrupt slide into irrelevance.
Having cited David to others on Sunday it has been haunting me since. I have been rethinking my attitude to some of the responsibilities God has graciously committed into in my hands. I have been marvelling again, and regaining a sense of awe at what has been entrusted to my little person. I think of all the years when i was light years away from thinking or imagining myself being or doing what i am in my professional life and in ministry. The road for me has been anything but smooth, peppered with friendships, betrayals, upheaval, misunderstanding, varying vicissitudes, failures and successes, high drama worthy of any television series. Yet i cannot get away from the fact that i have been entrusted with a life, with gifts, ability and influence that i in no way deserve.
I am, as you are, a David taken from following the sheep and exalted to a high place. Others might have thought themselves cleverer and smarter, ‘cooler’ and younger, the ‘right’ gender, or the ‘right’ colour and altogether the perfect match for whatever has been entrusted to you, but God chose you. He specialises in taking the foolish things to confound the wise. So if you have found yourself being careless, being irritated, or complaining about something you used to feel honoured to be and do, it is time to remember where you came from, it is time to change your attitude, it is time to once again celebrate, it is time for renewed gratitude. Then will tedium melt away and joy take its place.
Nice things that have happened to you lately
Still basking in the glow of some nice things that happened to me lately :
- I was given a beautiful long stemmed pink rose that is now gracing my table in my famed Bulgarian vase. The wrapping was so beautiful i was loth to remove and throw it away.
- Renée called to thank and encourage me and said she was praying for me, as she often does
- I was received like royalty at my hotel on arrival last night. it is so nice when you travel as much as I do, to go to places where they greet you by name, say welcome back and do not require an identification when you check in because they know you.
- An old friend paid me a sweet compliment, his exact words were ‘you still are, arguably the most beautiful person on this planet’ and i concurred, who wouldn’t. Don’t believe what they say, flattery will get you everywhere.
What about you, what are some nice things that have happened to you lately?
Faces of Rwanda
My friend Patrick sent me the link below to photographs of faces of Rwanda, some of these people are survivors of the genocide that he actually met in Rwanda as he visited Solace Ministries there.
His report on the trip, which i published on this blog dealt with forgiveness and healing, the way in which the church is helping people to overcome the desperate pain of the horrifying events they experienced. The photographs below (not taken by him) are powerful and moving.
Praise, presence and normality in the kingdom
Sometimes we need people to reassure us that we are normal. Sometimes you are so at odds with the people around you that you wonder if there is something wrong with you. At a time when I was surrounded by sweet, gentle, quiet Christians who did not want to upset anything or anyone, just wanted to go to church, pray quietly and have a good time, i had a shout in my spirit, I was thinking spiritual capacity, authority, strength, dominion, influencing society, and at some point I was seriously beginning to feel quite strange, then i heard Ulf Eckman. From then on, i have felt truly normal.
The first time I crossed the threshold of Word of Life church in Uppsala, Sweden, founded by Pastor Ulf (as his parishioners fondly call him), i was hit by the near tangible presence of God in the place. I had never felt it to that degree, and still have not, in any other place in the world. It got my attention; I was desperate to know how a church could be so saturated with the glory of God that even the building carried it. I experienced faith, passionate preaching and worship, great spiritual strength and an absolute and radical commitment to Christ that is rarely seen. I told God later when i returned to Paris that if that church had been in Paris, i may for once not have asked Him if i could go there, i would have gone.
I heard Ulf Eckman speak of something that occurred early in the life of their church. They were 200, and they would worship the Lord at length. One day, the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said ‘I’ll do anything; I’ll give anything to people who praise me like this’. They were, Pastor Ulf said, ‘praising Him like mad, worshipping Him like crazy, like fanatics’, not because they had to, but because they wanted to. As a result the Lord gave them a 4,000 seat auditorium, which they have now expanded to 5,500. And every time he enters the building, (by then he had moved to Israel), God would remind him that « This is made for my worship, i gave it as a present because you love me, and worship me and honour me ». After i heard this i understood why I had felt such a presence of God in the place.
It just messes me up, not because i want a building, even though I do want one, but because i like God to notice my praise, and inhabit my space. I want God to be pleased with the worship of Abba House and our Parakletos conferences. One fellow who visited us once, said to me, ‘Pastor, your sons and daughters are very zealous’. I cannot imagine it any other way. That is what is in our DNA, a people who praise God like crazy, who worship God like mad; i want to see people who forget themselves, and just lose it before God. It is so painful to see believers sitting around casually, looking indifferent when it’s time to praise God. I feel like shaking them and saying, ‘ What is wrong with you, don’t you realise who He is?’
So if you are in a place where people look at you askance or condescendingly as you vigorously celebrate Jesus in unrestrained worship, don’t worry, you are normal. God likes people like you and inhabits their space. And that, after all is what it’s all about.
Introducing Nelson Barack Adebisi OGEDENGBE my nephew
Introducing Nelson Barack Adebisi Ogedengbe, my nephew, born November 5 2008. This is the happy baby with his aunt. We are currently grooming him for high office. 
Questioned as to the choice of names, his father, my brother, went into a long winded explanation and when he was done, i was glad for the baby’s sake that he had shown moderation after all, his initial choices veered more towards Tutankhamen, Akenaton and all such delicious picks. This baby had one lucky escape.
Plus his delightful aunt was strongly tempted to do a Kunta Kinte welcome on him. Remember the scene in Roots, where the baby Kunta Kinte is taken outside by the father and held up to heaven, and the father says with suitable drama and gravitas ‘kunta Kinte, behold the only thing greater than yourself’.
Welcome to planet earth Nelson.
Leadership, God and hi-def video
From time to time we need to be reminded of who should be calling the shots, who should be on high definition video and who on audio. This scripture has been haunting me since i read it again yesterday. Let’s have a chin-wag on this.
Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians writes :
“Our appeal to you is not based on error or impure motives, nor do we try to trick anyone. Instead, we always speak as God wants us to, because he has judged us worthy to be entrusted with the Good News. We do not try to please people, but to please God, who tests our motives. You know very well that we did not come to you with flattering talk, nor did we use words to cover up greed—God is our witness! We did not try to get praise from anyone, either from you or from others…” (1Th 2:3-6)
This has huge implications for the way i and any leader live out their call.
To begin with, as a leader, my motivation must be right. My heart must always seek only what is good and pure, must be totally ethical. I must not have an agenda, for I stand under God’s judgement as to the motivation of my heart.
As a leader, my words must be right. Every word i speak must come out of a deep conviction of the truth of it, of its relevance to the good news of Christ, of the value of it in the eyes of God, of the fact that it is the very thing God wants said. I must never say what people want to hear just to make them happy with themselves, happy with me or to be popular. Rather i must always speak in such a way as to please God, not play to the crowd.
Furthermore, I am a pastor, I am not an entertainer nor am I a motivational speaker, i do not play on people’s emotions; i do not manipulate people with flattering words, i do not scratch where they itch. True the Bible says that in the last days men will gather to themselves teachers to pander to their whims and tell them what they want to hear, but i do not need to be one of those. i must always speak encouragement but never flattery, always speak truth and never engage in deceit. Read more
AUTHOR
pastor bola olivia ogedengbe,
The Theophilus Company,
ABBA HOUSE, Paris,
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