My secondary school years have been some of the best times of my life, asides the fact that it was the time I found Jesus for myself, it was also a period of deep soul search and coming to a realisation of everything that God had placed in me, including an excellent spirit.

From my first year there, I had been top of the class back to back till I got into senior secondary when I began to have some tough competition.

I remember that while in my first year of senior secondary school, one random afternoon, 2 of my teachers called me over to their office, they both had been teaching me the last 3 years so I was well acquainted with them and I could say they really liked me. But I still felt uneasy thinking to myself what they could be calling me for.

But I went, and after all pleasantries, they asked me to sit on a chair that was opposite the 2 of them, and then my nerves started to kick in, surely, if it had been something small, they would allow me stand while they spoke, but they asked me to sit and went further to send me to close the door. My insides were melting at this point, but I had to brave this, whatever it was, it will pass.

The next 1 hour was characterised by an unintentional sowing of horrible seed that I later had to confront before I graduated.

A new girl had joined the set and she was veryyyyy Intelligent, and for her, it was more natural intelligence. (There are 2 kinds of intelligence according to Malcolm Gladwell, Natural and Analytical intelligence). It was natural for her because it was effortless, she didn’t need to put too much effort to produce results academically, so she was naturally gifted mentally. We all are really, but over the years, by reading and observation, I do believe that some people have capacity to retain things a lot faster and easier, but like everyone else, they have their strengths and weaknesses.

So back to the story, this lovely, intelligent girl had arrived my set and over the first term, my teachers had gone ahead of me to mark her as a ‘Threat”, and so they had called me to inform me that I now had someone threatening ‘my position’. I was young, I dare say naive and had even got used to the attention that the intelligent kids got, so I interpreted that conversation as ‘Make her the enemy’, one of them even dared to advice me to be careful about her and, honestly it made sense then, but thinking back now, I’m so confused as to how that even made sense to me.

By the end of the conversation, I was vexed and charged in my spirit and I had decided that ‘If she wants to take my position, she was not gonna go down without a fight’. I began to resent her in my heart, it was bad cause she sat right in front of me all through senior high school cause we both made it to science class, she was so lovable and despite her being the very intelligent one, some days she’ll still seek my opinion and answer to things we were being taught.

It carried on like that for a while till some time in second year of senior secondary school, I realised I had cheated myself and had taken and interpreted well-meaning advice for something toxic. I had to do a lot of repenting and restitution. I had to search and confront the manufactured ideas in my heart that had made her the enemy and in the end I had to realise that there was really no threat to me.

Often times, we find ourselves in similar positions, resenting people for who they are or for the blessing they have without realising and loving the God in them. The devil has used this tool to cheat millions of Christians and daily, more are still falling.

Gods desires to brew a pure heart in each of us, our pure heart is characterised of just one ingredient, and that is love, and as 1 Corinthians 13 tells us, Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.

God wants us to confront our hearts and show it the way of the bible because even our hearts are not pure in themselves.

Myself and the girl ended up very good friends, we learnt from each other, taught each other and till today, I call her ‘My frontie’. lool

Grateful for light that came and cast away all shadow and darkness. God wants to do same for all of us.