Beware of Little Foxes

 

There are a number of “little foxes” a couple needs to watch out for while preparing for the wedding. The wedding is the bridge between courtship and marriage, if you have chosen to have a ceremony.  First let me point out that courtship is not a time when you find out whether the man or woman is God’s will or right for you; you enter into courtship, after making a decision that this is your man or woman. So, courtship is the time when you prepare for formalising or legalising your union. So when issues spring up, don’t take them as red flags to opt out but as little foxes that must be driven away or put to death so they do not destroy your fresh grapes. This message will be multi-part; feel free to post your comment and questions.

What the Bible says

Song of Songs 2:15: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes” (KJV). “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom” (NIV). Most Old Testament scholars agree that the vineyards in this verse represent Solomon and the Shulammite's love. When we make the decision to get married and start planning for the wedding, everything appears perfect; there is love in our hearts and heads and smell of love all around us. But the moment we leave the planning stage and enter the action stage, we begin to see little foxes in our love yard. In the verse, the Shulammite warns Solomon of their presence. Usually the woman sees or spies the little foxes earlier but her approach and his matters. While seemingly harmless, little foxes can sneak through fences, and are capable of digging holes and passages that loosen the soil around the vines, preventing them from developing a stable root system. We can equate that root system to our emotions or love which is at the very foundational stage just before marriage; like blooming grapes, it is very tender.

What are they?

Foxes are proverbial symbols of destroyers, the little foxes symbolise problems, challenges etc which may start out as being minor but can grow to become the monster we blame the death of our love for, if we don’t catch, drive or put it to death.

The two most common foxes for those in courtship are gossips and arguments.

I met a lady who was really worried and wanted to cancel her wedding. Why? She reported that lately she started having heated arguments with her fiancé. I realised after a couple of questions that these arguments had to do with the wedding plan. One thing you must consider is that during the period of planning for wedding, there are so many pressures from here and there; presuures that put your emotion on the edge as you gear up to make this life changing decision. The pressures would make the woman and man vulnerable to attacks of different forms. Your ability to look up to God and maintain your balance will go a long way to aid your survival and give you a testimony as you face this reality test. If you have established, before entering the wedding planning stage, that this is your man or  woman, never return to that decision stage. The decision has been made to marry so the problem, not the person, should be dealth with. Don't ever call off your wedding; reschedule, postpone, but except you realise that your judgement about this being your man or woman was blurred or wrong, NEVER call off the courtship or wedding.

 

The devil knows that you have to survive the wedding to become married so he begins to throw darts in your way in an effort to make you lose focus or become upset and walk out on your dream. Let me start by saying that you need to know what you want, differentiate it from what you need and realize that you cannot satisfy everyone.

 

Little foxes can be anything and everything! Usually they appear as little problems or minor irritations but can ruin a relationship. Because they appear small, many ignore them but these little foxes are deadly because they attack the root of the vines i.e. relationships. They may come in form of arguments, comments, hearsay or gossip etc. “Are you sure you'd be happy with him?“ “Do you know that she was seeing someone else when she accepted your marriage proposal?” As simple as this last sentence is, it can lead a jealous man to cancel the wedding plans even before verifying the truth. But what I usually tell those I counsel is, what if the information came in after the wedding? My take has always been that if you have the assurance that this is your woman or man, then any information and every information should be used to strengthen, not destroy, your foundation. So you find out just before the wedding that your mate has a terminal disease and you go, “Well, if she didn’t tell me before, it means she is not trustworthy and if she is not thrustworthy why should I marry her!” Are you worthy of trust? My Bible in Isaiah 64:6 say, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away”. Didn’t you say she is God’s will for you? So how did her willingness to hide a truth from you change God’s will?

 

 

But what if the issue is his age? You have vowed never to marry a younger person and when you met him, you asked for his age and he said 40 years old. You thought that was okay since you are 39, “At least he is a year older!” You exclaimed to your friend who are joking about marrying someone who looks younger. Then two weeks to the wedding as you were putting documents together for the court wedding, you saw his original birth certificate, he is actually 39 and few months younger and you flare up. “Why shouldn’t I! He lied to me?” When he asked how many men you had dated, did you not lie and then justify it in your heart by saying, “What is the point in saying 5 when he can use that as a reason not to marry me?”. But you also told your Pastor during counselling that he is God’s will because you had a dream where his name was written on the wall by God’s finger. So if God’s finger wrote the name, how come his age is now an issue.

 

Another Scenario: Everyone knows your fiancé as a medical doctor and you pride yourself in everyone calling him doctor this and doctor that but you've been wondering why he works in a laboratory when he can very well work in a clinic. But shortly before your wedding you found out that he actually went to medical school but he dropped out. So you become enraged and threatened to call off the wedding. You were in dilemma because you knew for sure that friends will laugh at you. You had told yourself that this is God’s man for me, you told your friends that you just love his level of intelligence and comportment, you told your mother how so gentle he is  and you told your father that he should just be happy that you found a man after his heart. So are you saying you were lying? Are you saying you fixed him into all those beautiful boxes because he has a humanly awarded title which unfortunately is false? 

 

So what are you saying?

 

I am not saying that I have accepted everything I never envisaged but was faced with during the wedding or came to me in marriage, NO. What I am saying is that you should accept the man as is. You know when you go and buy a "tokunbo" (used) car and you are about to pay for it, they'll tell you that it is, "Sold as is", meaning no guaranty! This legal term which is used to disclaim any implied warranties is applicable, though never clearly stated, in marriage. If you have accepted the man or woman as God’s will, then instead of walking out because of an ailment, disease, debt, attitude or character, you have to position yourself to take it to God in prayer and trust that since He gave you the man or woman, He will give you victory over whatever issue may sprung up to affect my happiness with the man. And you have to realise that in addition to prayers, you would have to develp skills to enable you solve the issue. To learn or develop skills you may need to speak to counsellors; the DC Host, Cordinators and Counsellors are only a message or phone call away. You must realise that, you do not win by letting go, you win by hanging on, not only to God's will (the man or woman) but to the God who willed and the resources He has blessed you with.

 

 

Other foxes?

Arguments are also little foxes and they will come up about anything and everything. Things like the type of wedding, clothes to wear, the reception venue, the person that should do the actual joining, where to be joined, the guest list, who to be on the programme, what to spend money on, who to pay for what etc can escalate into unresolvable arguments. In Part 2, I’ll give you some scenarios and then talk about how you can ensure that these little foxes, out to destroy your wedding plan and ensure you do not get married, are put to flight or better still to death.

Focus for Marital Breakthrough

Last year Divine Connection recorded marriages. This year, I am gearing up for multiple marriages. Mind you I did not say weddings because except you pull through the wedding, there is actually no marriage. The wedding ceremonies are the wants but marriage is the need. You will be married in Jesus name.

Sometime ago a friend said to me, you went to America for one Master Degree but because you were focused you came back with two. I shook my head in strong affirmation. Then she added, so why don’t you focus so you can get one husband! Of course I wasn’t shaking my head by the time she concluded.

So let’s talk about focus. How do you focus your prayer and your attention for marital breakthrough?

First you must be able to answer the question of readiness clearly. Are you ready for marriage? If you are ready and your man is not ready; there is a clause. For years I was not ready and for many more years he was not! I remember that when the Woman of God who introduced us asked him about marriage he said, “Mi o raye iyen nisiyi” (I don’t have time for that now). So even when I became ready, God’s choice for me wasn’t. So what should you do. Pray him or her into readiness! Focus and pray that by fire by force prayer, “O Lord! Make him/her ready; break him into readiness. As you brought Adam to the point of needing a help mate, spiritually anaestesised him and broke his ribs to humble him into accepting Eve; bring him to a point of readiness in Jesus name”.

Secondly, you need to answer the question of who. If you are focused on short men, your personality and aura will repel every tall ma. If his aura is not strong enough; he will leave. You must be clear about who you are and who you need. A yes man may be sweet to have but if you know you are a go-getter, a yes man will not get you there! If you are still confused about who you are, it may be hard to decipher who you need. You need to pray, “O Lord reveal me to me; reveal who I am and where you are taking me to”. If you know who you are then your prayer should be, “O Lord, by the direction of the Holy Spirit, reveal who I need”. After you have prayed, you must listen and begin to pay attention to events around you.

While you can candidly tell God who you need; I mean the kind of man you desire for destiny fulfilment, you must subject all these desires under His will which means in actual fact that the third point is clarity about readiness to accept God’s will. If who you want is a fat man, are you ready to accept God’s choice of a thin man? If who you want is a professional woman, are you ready to accept God’s choice of a businesswoman? If not, you need to pray, “O Lord, help me to accept your will.”

After you accept God’s will, you must be positioned to meet his will. Even if Rebecca knew in her mind that she was open to God’s choice, only been at the well positioned her to meet the man who connected her to her man. Are you well positioned? You can pray, “Dear Lord, position me for your divine connection to my man/woman”. When you pray this prayer, if God is telling you to relocate or travel or visit someone; please do. I have a sister who met her husband when she listened to the leading of the Holy Spirit to visit a sister in her church. During that visit she met the sister’s husband and they engaged in a discussion. The sister’s husband casually suggested she would be a good match for another brother in their church. Of course the sister she went to visit waived it off for flimsy reasons but today my sister is happily married to that brother.

There has been instances where all above comes together neatly yet the man refuse to speak or the woman refuse to answer. Ojuboro ko ni afii gba omo l’owo ekuro (it is not an easy task to collect seed from the palm kernel). You need to pray, “God, give me/him/her voice and verse (words)”. I had many suitors but some couldn’t get the words out; some were only able to verbalise their desires after someone else wooed them! I said wooed them because it felt like they were in a trance from which they only woke up after being married to someone else. If I was willing to take them, they were willing to marry me after they woke up! Until God spoke the words, “Let there be...”, everything that was meant to be hung in nothingness. At times the man or woman is around you but fear, family, familiarity, frivolities etc forestall him/her from speaking/answering. A guy talked about how an old woman would always appear in his dream each time he decided to ask a lady to marry him and once he sees the old woman, he will walk away without telling the lady why he lost interest. Brethren, spiritual things must be dealt with spiritually. You may need to go for a deliverance, you may need to withdraw to a mountain, you may need to fast and pray; who you marry determines a lot; so be focused.

Finally you must pray, “God! Let time and season work to create my marriage”. At times the man wants to settle into marriage but he loses his job and doesn’t have enough faith to carry on with the plan. It happened to me. When we met, he had a job but he lost it and insisted that we couldn’t go to the next level until he found another. It took God to convince him that this was the lie of the devil; with or without a job God can build a home. I had to serve my faith for two and challenged him to dine; “Fix a date and see if God will not go beyond giving you a job”. He did and God went the extra mile for us. There was a man who lost his mother few weeks to his wedding; the season was not going to favour him as the grief was driving him to cancel his wedding. But my mother stepped in and prayerfully guided him to go ahead with the registry part of the wedding. The other parts of the wedding that were cancelled were never done but they have remained married and happy because God turned things round because they listened to the voice of wisdom. The one who is dead has finished her race; the living has the task of continuing the race. It may sound harsh but it is real. I have a sister in the Lord whose marriage was nose diving. As part of the spiritual and medical treatment, herself and husband were to pray and have sex at particular times, the last day of their pray and sex fell on the night when they arrived at the village for her father’s burial. Of course her husband said, “But we can’t possibly have sex when you are mourning”, the sister said, “Even if we have to do it in the bush, we have to do it”. I don’t know where they did it, but they did it and that night the seed of their first child was sown. Today that woman who was called barren and almost buried her marriage in the grief of her father’s death has children to share the loving memory of her father.

All through your focus for marital breakthrough, you have to be in sync with the Holy Spirit; you must be sensitive. Wear what your Spirit says to wear, go where your Spirit leads and do what your Spirit directs even if it appears stupid. But be sure what you are interacting with is the Holy Spirit. I recollect that after I met Temi, though I caught him glancing a couple of times, I kind of felt he treated me more like his sister especially with the years between us. But if we were to be married, I didn't want to be treated as a sister, I wanted to be his wife. I prayed and the Holy Spirit said dress like a woman; a wife. Well maybe I interpreted it humanly but I decided to go the extra mile in my dressing and make up the next morning. Brethren, the look he gave me when I walked into him was dramatically different; it wasn't the kind of look you'd give a sister, it was a look for a sweetheart! He verbalised it by making an endearing comment and he sealed it by pulling me into a hug. I got what I wanted! But I had to start praying for the handshake not to pass the elbow... Except your mate wants his/her gender, be an attractive opposite!

You must learn to pray in a focused manner about accepting God's choice for you and that everything God has created will work to usher in your new home. When the time for settling into marriage comes, remain focused on the goal which is marriage. Your goal is is not to be a great girl friend/boy friend or excellent fiancee/fiance, your goal is to be a wife/husband. Don't get carried away by the dates, happy hours and ceremonies! Be wary of drawbacks; they have become devil’s tools for cracking the foundation. They include distractions and arguments about the type of marriage, venue, aso-ebi, who to visit, who to invite, colour code etc. Big or small, marriage is between two people. My husband and I had 4 joinings! The first, after he met my parents, was on the Altar of God before my Pastor and his wife ONLY. Even if we did not have other ceremonies, as long as God was there, it is signed and sealed in heaven. It is essential to follow the law of the land but don’t sign yourself out by making outrageous demands before you sign yourself in.

Remember that all what you want will not work except it is wrapped in God's will. Find time to read other posts on Divine Connection and feel free to request counsel.

I look forward to celebrating your marital breakthrough.

Essentials for a Happy Relationship

Happy relationships don’t just happen through luck, they are made. To have a happy relationship, all you need is a clear intention to create an amazing connection and intimacy with your partner. These simple tools will help:

Individualise your happiness

I remember saying to my husband after he asked me to be his life mate and live in the USA with him, “I never liked the idea of living here but, will you make me happy.” His response shocked me, “I’ll make you comfortable but happiness is up to you!” If we can be happy as individuals then we can bring our measure of happiness and add it to our mate's measure of happiness to form a wholesome welrounded hapiness. When you are content and know how to take care of your own emotional, physical, and mental health, then you are in the right frame of mind to share happiness in a relationship.

Communicate sincerely

Except your partner is a mind reader, you would have to sincerely express what you want and how you feel. If you focus more on communicating your feelings, without blaming, criticizing or putting down your mate you can be rest assured that your  love and happiness will grow. "I would love us to pray together whever you visit" sounds much better and would receive a better response than, "How can you just come and go without ever offering to pray with me; aint you supposed to be a deacon?"

Truly appreciate

Even among Christians, more and more mates now hammer more on what is not being fulfilled or complemented in the relationship instead of truly appreciating the other person. What you feed will grow. If what you feed to your mate is, “You are no good”, “If only you can be this and that”, then that is what will grow. But if you see all the beautiful things about the person and about the love you are sharing and you communicate your appreciation, more beautiful things will grow. If all you see is what is wrong with your mate, then more wrong stuff will grow and hate will creep in to dislocate the love you had. If you put your attention on what your mate does well, you’ll grow wellness.

Be yourself. You need to be you and let the other person feel comfortable in his or her skin! You cannot mortage your happiness or his on the altar of sacrifice. This will only lead you to be resentful and exhausted. The only one who can truly give you happiness is God through you. Bruce Lee was quoted as saying, "Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successfull personality and duplicate it." I'll had be the happy and successful person! Maya Angelou put it succintly, "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."

Be Honest. Honesty is a great key to happiness. If you are honest enough to discover what your challenge or problem is then you can truly be honest enough to seek help. It helps to honestly share your fears and concerns with your partner, only then can you receive empathy and support to work through it. There is humility in beign honest and this is a stitch in time that definitely saves nine. Hugh Prather, a minister and the author of Notes to Myself which was first published in 1970 said, "Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble".

Our vision remains to increase the percentage of happily married people and we will continue to grow this vision by sharign skill sets and tools that can help you connect to purpose and your partner in a divine way. Note that all the above will work more if yuo continually commit you and yours into God's hands. Though this tools have been shared in the context of love relationships, it would work for any relationship - with parents, colleagues, students etc.

Be sure to look us up online and spread the word about Divine Connection's online interactive session for mature singles coming up on August 11, 2012 at 9AM Nigeria Time or visit DC Open House link.

Above is excerpt from DC Open House of 14.07.12

Beware of Deceptive Diagnosis

Usually this is not a topic for singles - young or mature. But reality is that many mature singles either have children (natural, adopted or acquired) or are looking to sign up for parenting. As such, it is essential to point them to how the world may try to label the special gift(s) they have elected to nurture.

It is sad that helping and medicating is now decided along money lines. I found out sometime ago that because labeling children with ADHD, ADD etc. earns the school or clinic more money, psychologists would rather label than counsel. That a psychiatrist will choose to medicate instead of help a patient through therapy because medication brings in more Naira or Dollars is sad! My husband and I went to see a surgeon recently and the reception was clogged. The surgeon came out briefly to crack a joke about people having to wait longer because the schedulers overbooked. I was shocked that patients went in and out within 10-15 minutes. When it was our turn, he took a brief look at the procedure done previously and decided it would not work well. I was shocked! How could anyone, regardless of the years of experience, just take a look and make a decision based on gut feeling? He was done in less than 10 minutes and asked us to see a nurse who made him sign a document in a hurry. It took me going online to review a similar form to find out and explain to my husband what he signed. Needless to say he had no idea. But this does not only happen with those in the medical field, pastors do it to. 

I once witnessed a minister who spent less than 5 minutes to "counsel" and make "prophetic proclamations"; needless to say the vulnerable souls within the short time made donation and took whatever they were told to heart even though they left burdened since they had no opportunity to really share. To really help someone, we need to KNOW them and BUILD a relationship. That Jesus cultivated relationships is key and should be emulated by every Counselor especially Biblical Counselors. Unfortunately most counselees only value service they pay for and would cast aspersion on paying a Biblical Counselor; I have counseled my husband, siblings, friends on some issues but until a source they paid said the same thing, they did not take it is as life saving. How do we cross this bridge especially if setting up a center?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is usually first diagnosed in children and adolescents. It is characterised by inappropriate degrees of inattention, impulsivity and/or hyperactivity. Children with ADHD may be may be impulsive, forgetful, restless to the point of disruption, prone to fail, unable to follow through on tasks, unpredictable and moody. These characteristics appear in early childhood and are relatively chronic in nature. It is believed that this disorder is not due to other physical, mental or emotional causes. From time to time, all children will be inattentive, impulsive and/or exhibit high activity levels but this behavior is much greater in children with ADHD. 

When ADHD is left unidentified or untreated a child is said to be at great risk for impaired learning ability, decreased self-esteem, social problems, family difficulties and potential. Unfortunately, it is estimated that ADHD affects 3-5% of the school-age population, which means as many as 3.5 million children. That is the world’s perspective. However, I garnered from research that the ADHD diagnosis can be traced to the inability of parents to accept God’s calling in the area of parenting. If all parents see parenthood as God’s gift to enable us share in the joy of creation, we would embrace our role and save the world of deceptive diagnosis. Parenting was never meant as a burden; it is in fulfillment of God’s command of fruitfulness (Genesis 1:28) and goes to prove God’s loving kindness to mankind. The gift of children gave us the hope of continuity and it was through this continuity offered through God’s seeds that we received a child who brought the gift of redemption. 

All Christians and indeed all parents need to accept the fact that all children, believers, non-believers, are seeds of God’s blessings (Genesis 17:20). God gives and takes life, regardless of how these lives turn out here on earth; they were fashioned by him (Jeremiah 1:5). God created and can use any and every child. Just as Adam the first son was given the assignment to till the ground. God gave parents the duty to nurture their children in the way of the Lord; Proverbs 22:6 says, Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. We are to do our part and our part will impact the child even when he is old. So parenting is a lifelong role and any child – biological, adopted, in our sphere of influence etc, can be sent to us at any point in our lives. Parenting only becomes a burden when we decide to go it our way instead of God’s way. The peace of Eden became troubled when Adam and Eve decided to listen and act based on the serpents leading instead of God’s instruction which was simple. 

Once humans were given “worldly” options, they tossed the simple instruction that came with a nourishing garden in exchange for the devil’s option which left them homeless and troubled. Parents should note that they have God’s help; it is available, we only need to ask and draw from his fountain. Parents are not to abdicate their roles to teachers, media, societal norm etc. It is interesting to read the perspective about “quality time”; the job of parenting is never to be so compartmentalized, parenting is full time and we are to bind God’s commands in our heart and make it our watchword ((Deuteronomy 6:6-7). Biblical truth and positive modeling remains the only highway to ensure a child does not become diagnosed with ADHD and live on medication or enslaved to ungodly passion and desires.

As parents and mentors, we need to accept God and bring children to God; whether they grew up in or out of church they need a touch from God and God is willing and able to make it happen through us. I have always counseled children without quite leading them to the Savior first because I felt it is manipulative to ask a troubled child to accept Jesus before helping to solve the problem in their lives. Usually I pray with them, counsel them and then lead them to Jesus. But often, once they find a way round the issue; it could take a while before they accept Jesus. Now I know that since only God can make a lasting impact in a child’s life through Jesus then I should always do this first.  I learned to always bring children to a place where they see the need for God and I can do this by sharing examples of how God has been there for me.  

I teach about salvation using movies, games, story books and can continue to reinforce the message of God’s saving grace, compassion and faithfulness by evangelizing and doing stuff around them that can lead them to Jesus. Once I have done my part appropriately and adequately, I wouldn’t try to save them; I can nurture, I can care but God saves. Ephesians 6:4 was apt in the message to parents, especially fathers who are usually absent today: And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Going the Extra Mile

What does it mean to go the extra mile?

Literally, it means to walk further but to go or walk the extra mile is an idiom that means to try harder to please someone or to get a task done correctly, to do more than or put in a greater effort than is naturally or normally required or expected to reach a goal. I need you to think of how a friend has gone the extra mile for you.

Now when I say extra mile note that I don't mean extra mile in cheating, irresponsibility, laziness, dishonesty or any of such vices that I'm sure some are a part of. I mean going the extra mile in positive things. It is possible to go the extra mile for and by yourself e.g. studying. God knows that if a credit in Mathematics was compulsory for Art subject I may not have gone to the university. In my first attempt I walked out on my Math exam but when I realised I needed at least a pass even to study Philosophy, I had to go the extra mile.

So what motivates you to go the extra mile either for yourself or for others?

Before we continue, let's go into the Bible to read about 3 instances of going the extra mile:

1. Gen 24:14-27 Rebecca went the extra mile to make the 450 mile journey by Abraham's servant worthwhile.

2. Mark 2:1-12 4 men went the extra mile for a paralysed man.

3. Luke 24:18-35 Going the extra mile led two men to dine with risen Jesus.

In all these instances there is something that is obvious.

In the 1st example, Abraham's servant was on a journey and Rebecca was on a journey though shorter. In the 2nd example Jesus journeyed to Capernaum and the four men journeyed to meet him. In the 3rd example two men were on a journey to a village called Emmaus, Jesus who was also on a journey met them. Friends you can NEVER go the extra mile while standing aimlessly. You may not be able to soar, you may not be able to fly just yet, but make sure you are moving and your movement MUST be purposeful. None of these people set out on a journey to an unspecified location or for an unspecified purpose. Purpose was their motivation for going the extra mile. What was the purpose of Abraham's servant? Rebecca? The four men?

What purpose motivates you to go the extra mile in your friendship or relationship?

You can either be internally motivated or externally motivated but you must find a reason to go the extra mile in life otherwise it is just the beginning of the end for you. When you motivate yourself and make decisions based on your personal reflection to actively improve your performance; when you find a reason to believe in you and in your ability to make a difference; when you strive for your 'personal best', you are on course to determine your success. This is internal motivation. Internal motivation is the doing my best and deriving joy from counseling people, bringing smiles to faces and impacting lives. External motivation for me to achieve a Pass in Math was the fact that I wanted to go to the university. External motivation is caring for the man of my dreams because failure to do so may cost me heartbreak. We are motivated by internal and external reward to go the extra mile.

As you strive to go the extra mile don't expect it to be easy. When you plan to fast is when you are hungry the most or that is when a stingy person decides to offer you steaming cup of chocolate with sausages or hot abula with choice abodi, shaki and ogufe. There would be internal and external distractions; your thoughts, your friends, your parents, losing your job, getting a “no” to a woman you proposed to etc.

The four men should have been discouraged by the crowd, Abraham's servant should have been discouraged by having to travel 450 miles when there are readily available women around him, the two men should have become upset by Jesus seeming ignorance about the recent happening... but their determination to go the extra mile paid off.

A number of people drop the Nigerian culture of respect when they get abroad so it is not unusual to find our Nigerians calling professors old enough to be their fathers by their first names. But I made it clear that my culture does not permit it. Some funds came into my department and the new director didn't know how to disburse it so he asked the former director and guess what he said, "Let's give it to Omolola, she is very respectful! I got free unsolicited money for just going the extra mile; doing what I could have held back from doing. The habit of going the extra mile brings you to the favourable attention of those who can and often will provide opportunities for self-advancement.

What is the important principle of success in all walks of life and in all occupations?

This is the willingness to Go The Extra Mile; which means the rendering of more and better service than that for which one is paid or rewarded, and giving it in a positive pleasing mental attitude. Very important! So if you choose to help a man because you expect him to notice you or fall in love; that is not a right motive. The story of Ruth tells us how Boaz went the extra mile. The mental attitude and motive must be right.

Let me share my story.

Even though Bola had shown no commendable interest in having a relationship, I decided to go the extra mile. When we met, he was depressed from being out of job and was letting himself go but instead of being concerned about what he couldn't offer me, I encouraged him, got him to exercise and helped him put things together in his apartment. Months later I asked what nailed it for him, he said the fact that I went the extra mile. Verily it pays to go the extra mile, for every time an individual does so he places someone else under obligation to him or her. No one is compelled to follow the habit of going the extra mile, and seldom is anyone ever requested to render more service than that for which he is paid or rewarded except of course in reference to parents. Therefore, if the habit is followed it must be adopted on one's own initiative which is propelled by a motive.

Another story

You may have read online the story of a clerk who went the extra mile help to woman in the store where he worked. He discovered later that the woman he helped was Andrew Carnegie's mother! Andrew Carnegie was a United States industrialist and philanthropist who endowed education and public libraries and research trusts (1835-1919). The young man was later sent to Scotland and he received an order for several hundred thousand dollars worth of household furnishings.

Interesting story. Carol Downes and many others also took their destinies in their own hands by going the extra mile. Their success stories are wrapped up in this one lone privilege of every human: the right of personal initiative through exercising the habit of going the extra mile.

People do things or refrain from doing them because of a motive.

The soundest of motives for cultivating the habit of going the extra mile is the fact that it yields enduring dividends / profits in ways too numerous to mention, to all who follow the habit. We know the rules by which success is attained. Let us adopt these rules and use them intelligently to acquire success and personal benefits which would have a ripple effect of adding to the quality of citizenry and wealth of the nation as well.

Should you encounter weariness as you go the extra mile

Remember the words of this poem titled Footprints which ends this way:

"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way

But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life,

There is only one set of footprints.

I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The Lord replied:

"My son, my precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

Prayer Points:

1. Lord thank you for all those who have gone, go and will go the extra mile for me

2. Lord help me to go the extra mile where I need to

3. Lord make my going the extra mile count

4. Lord as I run the Christian race, send me divine helpers and divinely connect me