Walk With Me #Deararn.

A study of the life of Samson will reveal many things.

He was both strong and weak at the same time. At some point, we were told that his desire was so the Lord could judge the philistines.

I have sometimes found myself wondering how someone else could be so blindsided on a matter I considered simple enough. I rode on this foolish horse for a long while until God let me into the reason we were formed to live in tribes or communities. Remember, “in the multitude of counsellors, there is safety?’

Woe to him that is alone?

Books by Anne Ajadi (Available on Amazon)

Walk With Me In The Footsteps Of Jesus

Heart Matters Life Matters

Navigating The Night Season

You Will Marry Well

Strength For The Journey

God’s Lady In Waiting

Prayer Works

However your journey has been, gratitude is still the key.

Just like that! We are in November....

SEPARATE YOURSELF

Most of the time when we have a need to fast and pray, it is because there is too much noise, too many activities that prevent a stillness of heart. When our hearts are not still, then we are unable to pick signals being sent our way from heaven. When we do not pick what heaven is showing, our discernment is faulty, and we are left at the mercy of the winds of our time.

Anytime we find that to be our situation, the best remedy is to go separate. We should find some place to be apart and declutter our minds and concentrate on heaven’s instructions. When we come apart, prayer, study of the word, and meditation is easier. We are better able to tune our senses to pick heaven’s signal and receive strength to carry out the instructions that we are given in such separation.

Someone once said, there is no safer place than to be alone with God, there our secrets are safe, we are able to freely bare our hearts, confession is easier as we know that God is our Father and He is more interested in restoring us than He is in punishing us. We know His anger is for a moment and His favor is everlasting so, we are able to rest and receive His peace.

I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: (Daniel 9:4.)

While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill —(Daniel 9:20)

For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime;

weeping may stay for the night but rejoicing comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

Books by Anne Ajadi (Available on Amazon)

Walk With Me In The Footsteps Of Jesus

Heart Matters Life Matters

Navigating The Night Season

You Will Marry Well

Strength For The Journey

God’s Lady In Waiting

Prayer Works

WHAT IS FASTING?

According to Wikipedia, it ‘is the willful refrainment from eating for a period of time…’

Fasting in the life of a Christian is designed to cause the heart to be in tune to the Spirit of God, it is about creating room for God in the life of the believer. It is what we do in private that has the potential to have public effects. A man can be in the privacy of their home and change the course of events in the home, community or in their nation or even their world. It is hardly about what one gave up as much as it is about how one tunes his senses to be in the frequency of God’s Spirit. In that state, it was easier to know God’s mind and receive instructions from Him.

The process of denying the body of food and drinks, help to focus on the real matters of life, desires are tamed, and a realization that praying and fasting did condition the heart to receiving God’s solution to the issues at hand.

One is able to face God without any obstacle, have the senses sharpened, and able to see and hear and perceived God and His instructions more clearly.

More often than not, when we fast, we are able to see our less than desirable state and we also are better equipped to receive solutions to them.

Books by Anne Ajadi (Available on Amazon)

Walk With Me In The Footsteps Of Jesus

Heart Matters Life Matters

Navigating The Night Season

You Will Marry Well

Strength For The Journey

God’s Lady In Waiting

Prayer Works

FULFILLING PURPOSE

Haman got what was coming to him. He received the reward of his wickedness, Esther and her people were free to defend their lives and free from the will of their enemies.

God got his revenge on Agag and his kin. The children of Israel were allowed to fight for their lives and when the victory was won, they would not touch any of the spoil. The instruction that Saul the King would not carry out was obeyed by generations after him.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:8-11)

God’s word never returned unfulfilled. What has He promised you that is yet to come to pass? Does your situation feel as though God has forgotten you? Hold on, help is on the way!

Esther took her spot in the frontline of the battle for the deliverance of her people. She secured their freedom, ensured she got a seal. This speaks to her thoroughness and proper understanding of her mission

Esther taught us that anybody can be used of God if they yield themselves.

Your impact has the ability to transcend generations.

God uses everyday people too.

Books by Anne Ajadi (Available on Amazon)

Walk With Me In The Footsteps Of Jesus

Heart Matters Life Matters

Navigating The Night Season

You Will Marry Well

Strength For The Journey

God’s Lady In Waiting

Prayer Works

Honor is a force and a weapon that the Christian who wants to go far in life must consider pivot in their journey.

The difference between Esther and Vashti was, one understood the place of honor and the other clearly did not.

They both had issues with the King. Vashti would not be paraded before drunk men. She was right in the sense that what was demanded was demeaning but wrong in her dealing with the issue. She could have gotten her message across if she appealed to the King’s heart not wound his ego. She could have showed up and crooned her lover and maybe cajoled him into changing his mind about her strutting herself in front of him and his aides.

Conversely, Esther’s issue though more complicated than her predecessor’s, she applied wisdom. She first appealed to the King of all Kings. She fasted and prayed, prepared herself. She had to. She had not been before the King in the last month. Showing up uninvited was suicide at the very least. She listened to advice and when she made it before the King, she made her case about pleasuring him. She had to show him how she regarded him and needed him to be comfortable in her company. She organized dinner just to honor him and not just him, Haman, his aide, her enemy was also given the respect due him. He got an invitation too.

When the men showed up for dinner, she fed them and ensured they were pleased and still would not make here mission known. She understood timing.

She had to watch the mood before she presented her case.

When she eventually did state her mission, she did it in the most graceful way possible.

For someone in the throes of death, we have to give it to Esther for being so wise and honorable.

Dear friend, what door have you shut against yourself, because you would not obey the laws of honor?

You can retrace your steps and play by the rules and you would see doors open to you of their own accord.

Books by Anne Ajadi (Available on Amazon)

Walk With Me In The Footsteps Of Jesus

Heart Matters Life Matters

Navigating The Night Season

You Will Marry Well

Strength For The Journey

God’s Lady In Waiting

Prayer Works

Favor took her to the palace of the one who would order her death. Favor ensured she was there as the Queen, one who could sway the King from an irreversible decree. Esther’s life at the beginning was full of uncertainty. The loss of her parents, living life with her older cousin and as a foreigner in a strange land. We do not know that Mordecai had a wife, so, let us just imagine, who was she to go to for matters that pertain only to womenfolk? A hard life, but a life handpicked for exploits.

What is it about election that first has to take the elected through the school of hard knocks? Are we to celebrate bad times hoping there are tools in the hands of a mighty God?

Problem in the corridors of power, sitting queen deposed and scouting for a new one located Esther in the pack.

She found herself in the King’s harem competing against at least four hundred others. Her chances were slim, the others were native and extremely beautiful. She, though fair to behold had secrets and was reserved, no airs. She got chosen because the eunuchs were discerning. We were only told that she found favor with Hegai, not how the favor came. Maybe, the information was not important to the story. She was distinguished to the point she got preferential treatment. We did not hear of any other maiden getting a special part of the palace and seven servants in tow. Favor is not all bad!

Favor never promised that there would be no issues, it just commits to supplying grace to go through the path of destiny.`

The journey was bumpy, the circumstances were gloomy, but favor was at work. Joseph, Gideon, Mary and Esther all walked the road less traversed but when they got to the other side, they all found that favor was working and fixing all the wood and fire, setting the stage for God’s grand plan.

Books by Anne Ajadi (Available on Amazon)

Walk With Me In The Footsteps Of Jesus

Heart Matters Life Matters

Navigating The Night Season

You Will Marry Well

Strength For The Journey

God’s Lady In Waiting

Prayer Works

SEPARATING THE KING AND THE MAN

Queen Vashti was queen before Esther. We learnt about her beauty and the King’s love for her, but we also learnt that she failed to make the difference between her lover and the King of Persia. The two though residing in one person were totally different expressions.

As King of Persia, his word spoken in and out of tune was law and the recompense for going against was dire. She knew that and still went against. For his love for her to be evident for all to see, revealed that she was also aware that he loved her.

What she failed to cognizance was he had not asked for her as a lover, he did as King and her response should have been different.

Esther on the other hand, displayed deep understanding of what it meant to be King. It was obvious in the way she handled the matter that had the potential of her ending like Vashti or worse. She knew that both King Ahasuerus and his second in command, Haman, were men of honor. It did not matter if they bore their graces right or wrong, they were still to be accorded the honor due their office.

She was not confrontational about her approach to the matter. She knew that the King had to be in a good mood for such a thing to fly and Haman had to be unsuspecting. She invited him to dinner with the King and herself and was careful about the timing and manner of reveal.

When it was all said and done, she saw to it that the evil edict was revoked and her people free from the clutches of death

Unlike Vashti, Esther used her position for the good of the people and not just to entertain herself. When she gave banquets, it was with purpose in mind.

Books by Anne Ajadi (Available on Amazon)

Walk With Me In The Footsteps Of Jesus

Heart Matters Life Matters

Navigating The Night Season

You Will Marry Well

Strength For The Journey

God’s Lady In Waiting

Prayer Works

To be required to go and upturn an irrevocable decreeis no mean feat, not one for a feeble heart....