Category: Love and Relationships

“(S)He has to be God-fearing”

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god-fearing

Who usually has this title as a response to “What do you seek in a spouse?”

Even if you don’t, you’ve probably heard someone else say it. We all want to be with someone who is sold out to God, who believes, activates and walks by scripture and who honours God above all else! That’s key in the believer’s dream of a spouse.

People ask me the “what do you seek in a spouse” question very often, I think almost more than I am asked “how are you?” (Okay, i’m definitely exaggerating) but honestly, the frequency is high, but usually, half way into answering them, i’m cut off and asked how God-fearing didn’t top the list and I always struggle to even tell them that ‘it was never on my list’.

A criteria is like a benchmark a person should meet right? But I realised that ‘being God-fearing’ as a Spirit-led woman makes my desire of a godly spouse a standard and not really a criteria to be met. Do you have any idea how many God-fearing men and women there are in the world? Requesting he/she to be God-fearing is almost like saying he/she must be male or female. Funny right?

I think sometimes people also say ‘He/she must be God-fearing” because they haven’t even weighed other characters, traits and attitudes that could be found in a person. Christian couples don’t only pray and do bible study in marriage, please don’t be misled believing this is all that is done. I always challenge people to step forward, for a believer, God-fearing is almost bare-minimum, what else are you looking out for? A particular gift or fruit of the Holy Spirit perhaps? a trait or character like being able to learn from a person? and not even only in spiritual matters. Other aspects as well.

Your spouse should be God-fearing by default as a believer and by God’s grace, my faith does not allow me believe it is open for debate, so let’s press in, let’s ask God more questions. Questions like ‘what we might be deficient of that requires complementing’, it helps us prayerfully seek these things in a spouse as led by the Spirit of God.

By all means desire a God-fearing spouse, but please don’t stop there! Because even in your personal love-relationship with Jesus, you people don’t only pray and do bible study. Jesus is the complete-package lover, there’s laughter in the relationship, there’s gentle correction, there’s patience is working you through getting the hang of something,  there’s teaching of what you don’t understand, there’s even dealing with pain together.

How do we now take this complete, all-in-one package and just say God-fearing?

Adjust the Crown

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caged

If you’ve watched Tyler Perry’s Acrimony movie, you know exactly what an anchor it, it is that thing that sunk her down into the sea in the end after her attempted murder. Obviously that’s not the dictionary definition but it is easier to use experiential scenarios to define something rather than just read it from a dictionary, which is my best tip to anyone trying to expand their vocabulary, don’t just read and write down definitions, it is more useful to write down sentences using the word, you’ll remember it more than writing down the definition. You’re welcome! lol

That’s not the point of the post though, I just needed to be sure I was not assuming that we all knew the definition of an anchor.

There’s 2 ways to understand this post and i’m coming from a certain way which i’ll make clearer as we go on.

Saying ‘Jesus Christ is the anchor of the church’, does not mean, He is the lover who doesn’t want to see the church flourish and progress. As a matter of fact, it is His desire that the church continues to grow and flourish daily, so His anchoring the church is not Him standing in the way of the progress of the church. It is anchor to keep her grounded in what will cause her to flourish even more.

A friend was sharing with me how Marriage isn’t in the cards for her for a vary of reasons which were quite vague, so I probed further and asked her to explain the general words she kept using and her fears were mainly tied to what she’d seen, heard and witnessed in her home as marriage, so it did make sense that she automatically concluded that this was what marriage was all about and clearly not what she wanted. There were a lot of instances she made referring to her having to do something just to keep her husband happy and the marriage afloat and the majority of her reasons echoed one who feared becoming a prisoner to someone or something.

For her, a husband was synonymous to an anchor which she stayed tied to and did things according to, if she did not want to sink. And I began to share with her my view of what really it is from my study of the bible as well as experience and godly counsel.

Any godly man who’s going to come for you will be more of wings than an anchor. His desire is not to ‘tame’ you, but to promote your flight, because your flight is his flight as well. I shared how the man would always desire to see her win, just as Christ constantly desires the church to win, while cheering us on, equipping us daily with all we need to make it a reality.

Here’s how convinced I am of this, there’s this verse in the bible that gives me goosebumps each time I read it. It is the verse that refers to a virtuous woman as ‘a crown on her husbands head’.

A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, but a wife who puts him to shame is like bone cancer. – Proverbs 12;4

If you need to re-read that verse, please do, because it will give you a picture of the the value and importance of the wife to her husband as it is being compared to a crown on a king’s head.

Speaking real life now, a king never, never jokes with His crown. In fact disrespect of that object is outright disrespect to the king himself because only one person wears that crown during their tenure. The kings crown is value not just to him, but to his kingdom because it basically has power which it gives to whoever wears it. So It is well taken care of, maintained and constantly refreshed because it is a representation of the King Himself.

A godly man takes proper care of His crown which includes fostering her progress and not limiting it because the crown is his representation.

Marriage is really twisted in our generation as a result of a  lot of factors which really are all rooted in the ploy of the enemy to destroy such a powerful ministry which God ordains.

For those of you who keep check-lists for future hubby, feel free to add ‘Wings and not Anchor’ because God will never lead us into the hands of someone who will limit His work in our lives rather than facilitate it.

Is it You or Me???

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It’s 4 days to May guys! Whoop!, 4/12 will soon end and we’ll usher in 5/12, actually, whether or not we usher her in, she’ll still come so the best we can do is prepare and await her arrival! Praying every reader of this is well, sound and whole, and should this not be the case, I pray for wholeness, healing and peace in any area needing it!

You’re graced for this season!

I was reading some of my writing some days ago on my phone notepad and I noticed how often I had ‘The Holy Spirit told me…’ or ‘I sensed the Holy Spirit nudge me…’ and I began laughing because I know how sentimental it is for a lot of people who have a problem with such statements, I’ve seen posts where people have attacked users of such statements asking ‘How do you know it was the Holy spirit?’, ‘what if it was your thought process?’ and on and on. And frankly, it is a valid concern. That we’re believers doesn’t mean that every thought of our mind is influenced or birthed from the Holy Spirit and so it’s important we’re kept in check often, rather than ascribing every thought of ours to the Holy Spirit.

By God’s grace, I’ve been and still going through the phase of recognising acutely the voice of the Holy spirit in me and knowing when it’s just my thoughts or mind speaking to me and I know how a lot of Christians struggle with differentiating the 2 so I thought i’d write a blog post to address this issue, hopefully it helps someone.

So here’s an inexhaustible list below of knowing the difference between The Holy spirit and your mind;

  1. The word/voice/nudge is not accusing or condemning

The Holy spirit never, and I mean, never comes in an accusatory or condemning tone or voice. As a matter of fact, the bible tells us expressly of an accuser who constantly stands, laying accuses on us. When you hear or sense voices in your spirit that come in an accusatory, condescending or condemning manner, it can never be the Holy spirit but our mind condemns us sometimes by its nature.

It helps to know however that the Holy spirit does convict us occasionally when we’ve done things we shouldn’t have but even in those convictions, there’s no blame or condemnation.

2.  The word/voice/nudge is liberating and assuring

The bible says that whoever the Son of man sets free is free indeed!, often when the Holy Spirit brings words to us, we feel a certain freedom, a certain assurance on whatever it is that has been spoken, and this sense is not merely one of just our mind, its our whole being responding to something from our Spirit, because that’s where He drops it. The Spirit, before it bursts through to the rest of our being.

So if you have thoughts and you find yourself trying to convince your spirit of it, that might be something worth further checking.

3. It stands consistent with the Word of God

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the word, He echoes what the Word says and so, sometimes, when you get some thoughts and words that stand well in contrast to what the bible says, it’s a red flag to investigate further and see the source of that word. Sometimes, subconsciously we motivate ourselves to do certain things and say certain things convincing ourselves it is God, but we know better because whatever it is isn’t even consistent with God’s word.

4. It brings wisdom, knowledge and light that you’re not capable of producing

We all know ourselves, or at least I personally know myself so sometimes, when the Holy spirit speaks certain things to me, even me i’m screaming “Jesus”, because my mind doesn’t even have the capacity to ‘invent’ such wisdom or knowledge. The Holy spirit always comes with divine wisdom on what is being meditated upon.

Now this is very important because if there’s an input needed to produce the output, it means that we must actively feed on an input in other to generate the output. That input is the word of God, it’s godly conversations and edifying books and gatherings.

The Holy spirit won’t invent scenarios and examples for you if you’re not focusing your mind on something that could edify you. I’m personally so conscious of the Holy spirit to the point where in every single thing i’m doing, i’m consciously asking the Holy spirit ‘Do you want to teach me anything from this?’ sometimes I get an instant response and other times, after I might have left the place or things and even resting, He just brings back a reminder of it and further breaks it down. It’s like we give Him raw materials to work on by the things we feed our spirit.

5. It brings peace and joy

As a writer, one of the confirmations I get on whatever God delivers to my Spirit is peace and joy, He accompanies it with the word as an assurance that ‘This has come from me, and it would bring you and every reader or hearer peace and joy’.

And I’ve seen that I don’t struggle to write and once I struggle, I take it as a ‘not yet’ from God, because maybe God is till trying to teach me something on the subject area and thus does not release the flow until it is complete and usually when He’s done, it flows expressly.

Ultimately, it is to be able to recognise the Holy spirit’s voice. Any thing that is frequent breeds familiarity. Our frequency with spending time with Him and in hearing His voice, builds the confidence we need to know Him whenever He speaks. There’s no double guessing ‘God was that really you?’ because you’ve recognised Him long before now and He’s not inconsistent to suddenly change His way of meeting with you and even if He does, He’ll give you the understanding and peace to recognise and accept it.

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Don’t look like this again when the Holy spirit says something to you and you’re sat there questioning if it’s your mind! lol

“You’re a Christian girl for God’s sake!”

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I re-told the story of my friend below for a post on upliftgirl.com which I think you should totally check out! Re-told because it was by mouth it was said to me but I put it in writing.

True story, I hope you’re blessed, but even more, made more aware.

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I had already known my parents to be very religious and principled at a very young age.
It was as though certain things weren’t suppose to happen to you when you named the name of the Lord so it was hard to comprehend when I found myself in certain situations.
My parents were very loving folks and I know they meant the best for me and what I think they did was shield me from the evil of the world but I think a better way would’ve been to make me aware of it but teach me how to navigate around it.

I was probably just 8, I was living in Port-harcourt with my family cause my dad worked there. My little sister was a little over 5 and my mum was mostly a stay at home mother who thought she had her eyes on us 24/7.
We had these neighbours and big cousins who’ll come around often.
They wanted to greet my dad and all so they’d stay the entire day till he came home and then greet him before they left. As time went on, some weekends, they’d spend the night some days.

One of those nights, 2 of the older girls. who weren’t too far from me on the bed started to touch me in places that my brain registered as “unfamiliar”.
It registered it as danger but oddly, it was pleasurable.
They were older so I think I assumed it was some sort of play for older girls so I let it.
It became very frequent and they would sexually assault me with their bare hands and have me do strange things as well.

Oddly enough, I knew this wasn’t right but I couldn’t bring myself to stop them or report them. Just the thought of what my parents would think if they found out was enough to keep my hushed.

I moved away from Port-Harcourt about 2 years later. I was older then so I knew exactly what had been happening to me and it had happened so frequently I had lost count.
But hey, it was going to be a new start. I’m moving away!, or so I thought.

We moved to Abuja and it was really all sunshine and roses until one night when an Aunty came over again to sleep over and it was like she had recognised what I had been up to from Port-harcourt and the cycle resumed.
“Touching and playing like adults”

I became so irritated at the thought of myself. I wondered how a child of such religious parents could be experiencing this, like “weren’t my parents covering me in prayer!?!!”
This led to my silence.
I was usually very talkative growing up but getting to a boarding secondary school, I became mute, speaking only when I had been spoken to and a response was required. I enjoyed the quietness. It deceived me into thinking the madness was only within and not around me and so to keep myself from being more dirty than I thought myself to be, it’ll be wise to keep it all in.

I began to see my body through horrible lenses. I felt I had eyeballs that weren’t proportional to the size of my face. I felt my cheeks were too big and God!, I hated my legs, I felt like they were terribly irregularly shaped.
These insecurities ate me up to the point where I hated to look in mirrors. I didn’t want to be reminded of what my head already knew.
How I managed to finish high school without failure, I can’t explain it, but that’s pain right?
It lets you get through one phase, doesn’t mean it ends there.

It was time to get to University, fortunately, my dad agreed to let me go to the United Kingdom despite his high level of over-protectiveness. It was the first time I’d be by myself, alone and the thought of what I would do to myself scared me so much.
But hey, life had to go on.

University started great, made a friend or two, had my own mini studio apartment and I had found a few activities to keep me from thinking often. But that didn’t last very long.
I became terribly depressed and lonely, it was like, I loved the muteness, but I wanted to be around other people so I was not too aware of it.
I started struggling in Just foundation year academically and I wondered how it all escalated so quickly.

I was back summer of that foundation year and one time I sat in the kitchen with my mum and God knows whatever even made me think she’d understand and I told her I had been struggling with anxiety and depression in the most playful way.
She said “see what you’re saying with your mouth”.
Meaning, ‘that shouldn’t be coming from someone of such religious calibre like myself’. Before I knew it, it had become fight. My mum wanted to know so badly what would be depressing me young as I was and I honestly didn’t have an answer so to keep Peace and for my sanity, I told her it would be fine and ended the conversation there.
Promising myself never again to bring it up.

I knew I had to get serious with God, I knew I was now on my own, the monsters in my head weren’t going to go anywhere if I didn’t send them away.
I think God heard my prayers because He began to send me friends, friends who allowed me open up to them at my own pace, I even got into a relationship with this guy who I genuinely thought was my everything. Him and I would pray together, talk about everything and just be each other’s best friends.
We were close to the point I could let him in on my past. He didn’t judge me, he had a past of his own so we were good, really good.

Life started to look brighter and this time, it was actually the sun, not some made up artificial light in my head. I noticed that the more I spoke to people, the freer I became.
I forgot to add that I stammer and stutter, (one of the many things I hated about myself), I think I inherited it though cause my dad stammers, however, not as bad as I do.

But the more I spoke, the less I stammered, I’m not sure how but I noticed it began to go away.
I started praying more too and talking to my best friends whenever I was at my lowest and they always had the best words.

I can say I’m in so much a better place now, despite having to retake a year in University, but I’ve picked my pieces up and everyday, I’m gluing each piece back to where it belongs.
I’m learning to forgive myself, but most importantly, to separate the blame from myself because I hated myself because I blamed myself for everything that went wrong in my past.

I look in mirrors now, very often and I tell my huge eyes and not-so-straight legs that they’re beautiful.
I was robbed of a normal childhood by girls who I even still meet today, who act like it was totally fine and normal what they did, and for my own sanity, I’d rather keep it quiet, but maybe one day, when my healing is complete, I’ll gather the courage to let them know what they did to my life, but even more, how much I forgive them.
And maybe one day too, I’ll share my story to encourage other girls who come from homes where “such doesn’t happen to Christians”.

It’s been a long eventful journey but I’m grateful and here’s reaching out to every girl/woman who is still bleeding from wounds of the past in her present, heal first. Only you can take responsibility for your healing.

My boyfriend and I broke up very recently too, as much as it hurt, it was great to realise how much I had moved past pain because of how I handled all of it, especially as it really wasn’t my fault, But I’m in a happy and content place now, back to being single but learning and loving up on me.

One day, I’ll tell Mummy too, that such does happen to Christians and what really mattered then was a listening ear and not what was ideal to be said by a Christian girl. I also know already that my daughter and I will be best of friends.

My past isn’t allowed to rule me anymore. I’m a free young woman!

shhh

Can I just be independent?

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I’ve heard people say so often how they feel like the biggest problem in our generation is the idea that we seem to always know what’s best for us and can go after it.

Looking at that first, it seems like a really good thing, but I think what the older generation struggle to understand with it, particularly people of African/Asian descent, is that they believe more in learning from the experiences of others and not merely trial and error which is quite costly while we just wanna take the plunge from our own intuition and see where it leads us. So you can imagine your parents frustration when they are pointing you in a direction but because you’re so convinced of the opposite direction, you take permission from them to violate their intuition and go with your own intuition.

Sometimes, we do get to certain places and realise “oh, they were right”, and other times, we get there and get to say “I told you so” back to them. May the odds forever be in your favour with regards the reply you give in life.

I had a conversation with a friend recently and she was about to do something quite big in her life and while speaking to me about it, she said ‘I don’t want my family to know’. This was not the point of the conversation but my ears picked up on it so when she  gave me room to speak, that was the first question I was throwing back. “Why don’t you want your family to know?”

She started by saying how they know how independent she is about her life and how she doubts any of them would really be fazed about it and despite my push to inform them, she was bent on not doing so, but on the bright side, she hadn’t kept it from the entire world, at least I knew what was going on. (Don’t worry, it does not implicate me so we’re good, lol).

In convincing her to tell her family, I realised a gap she had made in her understanding of what independence and accountability is, and I said to her that “Accountability  to the people who love us does not, in any way infringe on our desire to be independent“, and I’ll explain that some more.

Even when were grown and true-true, we know whats best for us, our parents and all our loved ones still love us the way they did when we were little, their love for us doesn’t change much because we now have horns and tails lol, although, there are family ties that are seared because of decisions taken by younger people.

But in this case, it was purely a picture of ‘I’ve been independent, I don’t want to bother them with this’.

So I asked her a question, I said, “would anyone in your family be hurt or offended if they found out after it was done?” and she responded in the affirmative and I shared with her how its now not just about her but them as well, if it impacts them in some way and also how it now transcends her independence and now sits on her accountability to her family by mere fact of the emotional bond shared. But being strong-willed and a true candidate of this generation, she still refuted the stance I had made.

I’ll probably still have a go at convincing her, but I need us young people to realise that accountability does not stop us from being independent and its totally fine to involve the people you should be accountable to even while making your independent moves. I’m hopeful that when we sit in the shoes of our parents one day, we’ll see more clearly all they saw and tried to protect us from, but then, it’ll now be our turn to sit back and allow the ones who ‘know’ do and learn from their mistakes. A cycle that might never end!

Lets be the strong accountable, independent generation.

independent

“I’m not ready”

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I was speaking to a Mentor recently and I shared with her how ‘unready’ I felt in a certain aspect of my life. To be honest, I was expecting a hug (over facetime), a cute endearment, followed by an encouragement to keep praying and doing what I can till I feel ready. Something like ‘Aww Rubie, I totally understand, I think you should keep praying about the feeling and also wait till you feel ready’.

This was what I was expecting.

I was hit with the biggest slap (figuratively), when she responded almost immediately saying “Then prepare Rubie!”.

Because that response caught me off guard, I went silent for the next few seconds recovering from the opposite of what I wanted to hear and she began to ask “what is making you unready?” and frankly, I didn’t have an answer, so I just stayed there, repeating “I don’t even know” and she broke into mummy-mode (as usual) about how It’s important to recognise ‘unreadiness’ as either our fears or an obvious lack of preparation.

I took what she said and meditated on it the next few days and I felt the Holy Spirit use her words to speak to me on how preparation is what is needed and how it is easy to settle into that ‘unreadiness’ mentality and think it okay.

So I made up my mind to prepare, like consciously, intentionally and actively prepare, so i’m not caught off guard or feeling unready when I have the entire time to actually prepare.

I’ve brought same tidings to you; what do you feel so unready about or for? Is it you feeding off your fear, or have you just ignored preparation for it?

It could be a job, a phase of life, a move or anything at all. God honours and blesses the ‘Works of our hands’, not the ‘thoughts of our minds’. we need to move from thinking to actually doing, all as led by the Spirit of God. Like me, someone needs to start preparing!

The real Owner

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We meet yet another “flash-in-flash-out” woman in the bible, I’ve blogged about a number of them so far, from Micah to Orpah to Pilate’s wife and now, we meet with Moses Mother, Jochebed (thank God she was named!).

The only thing I hear her mentioned about is her bravery in placing Moses in a basket and letting him down in river Nile. But recently, I was led to read deeper about her, even though she appears only about 3 times in just one chapter of the bible and I’m excited about the amazing things this brave woman teaches us.

After she had let Moses down in the river and he was found by Pharaohs daughter, the bible records that Miriam wittily asked her if she could go call a Hebrew woman to nurse him because Pharaohs daughter had known right away that He was a child of the Hebrew people.
She obliged and Miriam went straight away to call his mother whom the bible records nursed him till he grew to a certain point and then she went back to hand him back to pharaohs daughter who had been paying her to nurse her new son. Lol

I couldn’t Fathom this honestly, she had reunited with her baby after the very gruesome parting which had to happen out of option and not by choice and after the divine reunion, she had to take him back and present him to his new mother who just found him in a river, and I began to think,
She recognised that she had done her own part!
The baby had lived, she had even nursed him to a certain age and now she needed to present him back to pharaohs daughter.

Imagine if she allowed her emotions to stop her from giving him back, if she had been so emotionally attached to the point where she revealed the truth of how Moses got to the palace! How dramatic and bloody that scene would’ve played out!

There was a divine purpose for Moses and her part in the plan of getting Him to live to fulfil it was done.

How hard is it for us to walk away from things God has finished working on in our hands and is now wanting to move to the next stage even when we’re the ones who’ve birthed it?
Bible actually records that “she took Him back to Pharaohs daughter”

I began to think and understand how in the kingdom, we understand that there are never really “owners”, only “stewards”. There’s a clear distinction between the two and it’s only a person who understands that they’re a steward that would find joy in parting with the thing that has been given to them only for a time.

Moses mother is our first teacher of stewardship, despite the pregnancy phase, birthing her baby and even miraculously hiding him for three months, she recognised her role as a steward and not an owner which is why she walked away so easily despite being able to claim every right over her child.

What has God given us to steward that we’ve taken ownership of?
It’s telling in our reluctance and inability to release it to enter its next phase, even without you in that next phase

jochebed

Moments of Truth ; Has He told You He loves you?

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When I was in high school, I had a lot of male friends, I think that protected me from being attached to anyone of them particularly because I would relate same way to all of them, up until getting into my final year when it became visibly obvious that myself and this young man got a lot closer. It started as normal play really but if you went to a boarding school, you will know that people there have an uncanny ability to just blow things up, no matter how small it was.

So before I knew it, it was ‘Rubie and David‘ being sang everywhere. We knew we were closer than usual but frankly, me and him knew it was just friendship cause we’d sit and talk for long hours and just laugh together and despite the fact that we went to prom together, we never really dated or even so much as admitted that ‘we loved ourselves’, but without being bias, truthfully in school most people saw us as ‘a thing’.

We never defined whatever it was and then we graduated and carried on with life and this ‘thing’ dissipated like fresh air although we remain good friends till today.

Recently, I was on a group chat where conversations were going on about how some guys may be shy to come out and tell you they are interested in pursuing a relationship with you, even for us as Christians, and people were basically putting in their two cents on whether or not it is a legit issue and what a christian woman should do in such a situation. It might give more perspective to say that it is a group chat of very profound young christian men and women, so it was not really a random environment or conversation.

Contrary to what people think, I can be a very oblivious person, it has caused me blessings and mishap in my life because sometimes, things I should notice and pick up on, I don’t and I end up missing things, and then other times, not being able to notice and pick these things up have saved me stress and time. (however, I see it more as weakness which I still take to God in prayer). So it is highly unlikely that I would just know that someone is secretly harbouring love feelings towards me and I believe there are more ladies like myself too, so while there’s a saying in society that ‘women always know‘, some of us just hide our face in shame and thank God for the Holy Spirit within us that brings discernment because left to natural abilities, we would never know.

I think a lot of young girls and women base huge decisions on a lot of assumptions that have never come out as words or even actions. Women especially, being emotional and sensitive as we are, have a tendency to see more into things than the average man will. It is one of the gifts God has graced the woman with. Sort of like when Abigail went immediately to appease David with gifts after her husband had sent a harsh reply to David who sent his men to seek help from Him. (Check out the story here)

Her sensitivity and emotions as a woman led her to take action before David would make his way back and kill her husband and his men, and if we read that story to the end, after Abigail’s husband died, David took her as his wife, who knows, maybe it was just that pure display of sensitivity and emotion that attracted him to her.

So usually, when we over-read meaning into the actions of noble young men around us, we might interpret it for something more than what it is which leads to this whole play out of hurt and pain when the realisation finally hits you that you over-thought it. I  usually advice young women against sowing seeds in a garden that has not been open to you. By that I mean, fantasising and emotionally vesting yourself into relationships that has not been defined and discussed by the man in question.

There’s so much that we will save ourselves from if we just choose to move in step with the Spirit of God. The Holy spirit is just as interested in our ‘love-life’ as He is in our ‘bible study and prayer life’. He is a Spirit that influences ALL of us and not just a part and so let’s be mindful to bring Him along even when we get to such junctions.

To be honest, I don’t even know whether or not a man can be too shy to tell you he is interested (especially when this man is being led by the spirit of God), but what I can tell you confidently, is not to move ahead of yourself and allow your sensitive and emotional side lead you into a place you have not been invited to.

If it really bothers you that much that He might like you but not have the courage to say it, I think its a wiser choice to pray that God grants Him the courage and not just take matters in your own hand.

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Check out the last Moment of truth post here

I told my best friend that her fiance was messaging me

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truthh

Yesterday, I was thankful again for some of the angels God gifted me as friends, This Girl called me up, asked to take me to lunch and later added seeing a movie to our hang-out and Lord knows I didn’t know I needed to relax till I lay in my bed at the end of the day reminiscing on how beautiful the day went, but even more, how relaxed I felt.

Let friendship not just be in our mouth, lets go a little further and put some action behind it shall we? But no, this post isn’t about Christiana or my day out or a need to have friends like her (Although i’m sure you’d have caught the point by now, lol).

We saw ‘What Men want‘ at the cinema and if you know me, you’re probably thinking ‘That’s not Rubie’ cause you know that it’ll be my last option if I was going to a cinema to watch a movie and the movie choice was up to me. The reason is that I find a lot of Black-American romance movies very profane, added to that, they’re also quite explicit and because I’m team ‘Guard your mind and heart’, I try to stay away from those things as much as I can because I genuinely don’t think I can handle it.

But Christiana wanted to see it and truthfully I had seen some good reviews as well so I obliged and didn’t object. This post is also not a review of the movie but of a trend that was accentuated in the movie.

It brought a flash back of a girl in my teenage church who once shared at one of the ‘Girl talk’ sessions at youth church camp, how her sisters husband had started to look at her lustfully while he was dating her sister and even went further to tell her that she was the one he wanted even if it was her sister he was marrying. (Yes, The effrontery!). Sadly, it was all verbal communication and not one she could screenshot and go show her sister who was about to get married then (Oh Lord, that you’ll give us the spirit of discernment to see through these facades, both male and female alike!).

She approached her second sister and told her what had happened over the months leading to the wedding and the other sister accused her of seducing him and went further to advise her not to tell the sister about to get married, so she didn’t. When she was sharing this story and seeking advice, her sister was married to this man and she had been running away from him the whole duration of the marriage (How she moved from kettle to pot! ugh).

In ‘What men want‘, there’s a very similar turn out of events, similar to a movie called ‘Boy, bye‘. There, a recently divorced friend, found out that her best friend’s boyfriend was actually married and so she took it to the ‘counsel’ of close friends to seek advise on what to do as she didn’t want to appear as the ‘Kill-joy’, ‘bearer of bad news’ or ‘jealous friend’. The ‘counsel’ of friends decided against telling her directly and just set up a scenario where the wife would meet them two in an inappropriate state (in the case of the movie, in bed). So these friends went ahead and plotted this decision.

On #QuestionAnsweringFriday on our Instagram page, a couple of weeks ago now, I received a similar question from a girl who asked if she should tell her best friend that her boyfriend was secretly messaging her, even while they were still in a relationship. And watching What men want and Boy bye just brought all these occurrences back and made me begin to question friendship in our generation.

How we would be scared of being named ‘jealous’ over telling the truth, or how we’d be willing to watch the people closest to us walk into fire because we don’t want to be the bearers of bad news! like what?

By God’s grace, I’m the friend that my best friends fiance wouldn’t even want to find out that he likes me, because once I so much as sense it (spiritually now), my best friend is knowing and not just knowing but walking away because if at fiance level you’ve still not been trained and taught by the Holy spirit to be committed to one, I don’t think that’s somebody spiritually fit for marriage, so yes, i’ll be snitching you straight up.

In that moment, as much as I know the hurt it will bring her, I know also the compilation of hurt I will be saving her from in the future, so we’ll mess up the now just to preserve the future, obviously as led by the Spirit of God.

My number one trait I look out for in all my friendships since I knew the real meaning has been ‘honesty’, honesty to yourself and honesty to me as your friend. It’ll shock you to know that it is not even god-fearing because I’ve been good friends with unsaved people and God has used that friend-relationship to draw them to God, If I decided to make friends with only saved people, I can’t imagine the number of people that I was led to bless, slip through just because I decided to make only saved friends. (Ps. not everyone of us can handle this, until you’re sure you won’t be influenced, please there’s nothing wrong in sticking around only saved people, let God be the one to move you).

If you want good friends around you, it starts with you being a good friend. What’s your testimony as a friend to the people around you? I think we should all think about this.

I say this with all conviction, that if you are scared or concerned about telling any friend of yours the truth that could save them trauma in the future, however complicated the situation, you need to reevaluate that relationship and pray about it also. It is not normal or okay.

Perfect love casts out all fear.

‘Fighting’ unwanted feelings

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I think most people have been in positions where they started to develop feelings that were not appropriate for the situation, circumstance or person in question.

Most times, it is circumstantial that these things happen, it could be because we’re speaking to them too often, or spending more time than usual, or just stumbling over something that appeals to you about a person.

Sort of like when David randomly looked out of his window when Bathsheba was having a bath and he wouldn’t take his eyes away from her again and just that moment led him to a whole phase of sin upon sin, from covetousness to lying to deception to plotting evil and even to murder.

So we need not be told what harbouring feelings that should not be harboured could do to us. David is a perfect example that you don’t want to be, at least for that part of his life. But by all means, lets strive to be the people after God’s heart.

Truth is, we’re young, we’re mostly happy, (or should be) and our strength and hormones are all over the place, its a youthful phase really and they’re there for a purpose and for a time, not to be controlling and ruling us however strong they prove to be. So I thought i’d make a blog post about how to deal with unwanted feelings, which could be eros love towards another person, could be jealousy for no reason, it could be hurt due to the past or even hatred towards another just by the testimony of someone.

Like a friend who was confident enough to admit she was starting to harbour feelings for someone who mentors her. They meet once a week every week for mentoring sessions and they talk through her academic and career goals and he gives her advise on ways to do better going forward.

When these kinds of things are told to me, I usually have to take like 5 minutes to just quickly ask the Holy Spirit to help me not to reply to the person in a haste cause more often than not, i’d just say what I would do if I was in same situation, and its not every time that what I will do is in alignment with what The Holy Spirit will have the person do. Cause personally, I know i’ll stop the sessions immediately but was this was God was also saying to my friend? I thought not.

So I’ve broken down my advise to her in bullet points as I heard points work better for most people, so i’d use points rather than just type blocks of text and i’d appreciate feedback if this is easier to read.

  1. Remember your why – I asked her what the initial intention was for cultivating the mentor-mentee relationship, after she responded, I got her to be honest with me if she was already drawn to him before this relationship even started and she said no, that it developed after it started, so in that regard, I couldn’t really blame her just advise that she focused intently on the purpose for their meeting in the first place.
  2. Flee! – (Yes, my own solution), but might not be applicable in all cases, but the bible admonishes us to flee every appearance of evil, and i’m not saying that her feelings towards him is evil, but it could create evil if not handled with care, as it could lead to lust, lasciviousness and even sexual sin, even if it is in her mind. So after we prayed about it, I told her that If it persists, she might need to take a break away from the sessions. Sometimes you don’t have to fight some things, just flee from them. And Ps. Constant communication fosters feelings, just in case you weren’t aware.
  3. Renew your mind – In the cases of jealousy and hatred without basis, even with base even, you need to renew your mind and allow the Holy spirit deal with those things in you by opening your eyes to the desires within you that is causing you to have such ill feelings towards your brother or sister in Christ. Sometimes we harbour jealousy and hatred towards people because we don’t have what they have or want what they have. The bible says that Godliness with contentment is great gain! Spend some time in the word and renew your mind.
  4. Talk to God about it – The funniest conversations I’ve had with the Holy spirit personally have been those in relation to feelings I was having, and I think our generation calls it crushing?. Talk to God about the feelings, not the person! Because by praying about the person, you’re even easing your mind into getting comfortable about the thought of the person, kinda like ‘Well i’m praying for the person, not thinking about them’, please don’t deceive yourself.
  5. Spend your time wisely – This is so important please. Do you know that if David went to war that day, he wouldn’t have had cause to see Bathsheba bathing? He was led to that sin in his idleness. Idleness will always lead you to sin, so what are you doing with your time? My friend told me that ‘I can’t get him out of my head Rubie’ and I told her its because she doesn’t have enough work to do, and truthfully that’s it, if you have godly, lucrative things occupying your mind, you won’t sit and day dream about someone and even when the thoughts come, you’re honest enough with yourself to distract yourself by doing something else.
  6. Settle in the love of God – A recent post on foch_woman page on Instagram explains this clearly. We have to settle in the love of God to be able to recognise, understand and accept true love. Have you finished settling in Gods love? Because it is a faulty chronology to settle in human love before God’s love.

At the end of our conversation and prayer with my friend, she asked me ‘Do you think I should tell him?’ I asked her back if we just finished wasting our time… lol. Although that was our banter, but really, I responded with a massive No just because I do not believe in leading someone else into your feelings by your feelings.

If the Holy Spirit has not orchestrated or approved something, don’t move ahead of Him. Her informing him of her feelings would have complicated issues and frankly speaking, given the man in question an advantage over her seeing as she’s the one with those feelings. The bible says that Wisdom is profitable to direct. Please allow wisdom direct you.

God would never give us anything that will destroy us. Our hormones and feelings are not for us to sin with. They are also for His glory. We need to move in step with the Holy Spirit to navigate our way through these things.

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