TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 22ND AUGUST 2024)
“And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. Genesis 2:18-20 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 235TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
It has been 235 days of the impact of God’s grace, mercy, goodness and living truth in our lives. We are what we are today because of His faithfulness.
I read a devotional that I published previously on this platform and discovered that we need to go back to it today, especially going by what is happening in the lives of many. The Bible says, “God has spoken once, twice have we heard.” It is absolutely important to hear twice and even more times, certain things that God may have spoken to us once.
Repetition is the key to Establishment. It is my prayer that as we look at this devotional again, we will find a path to follow in doing what the LORD spoke to us yesterday about following His plans for our lives. Amen!!!
THE POWER OF RIGHT PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES
It is important to note that, in as much as following God’s plans is vital for a blessed life on this side of eternity, knowing God’s plan for our lives is not always enough. There are other things that will be required, one of them is having God given people that will help us fulfill His plans for our lives.
That is one message we can glean from the life of Adam. The Bible says;
”And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. Genesis 2:18-20 NKJV
Adam gave names to all the animals in the then world but yet needed a right relationship to truly become all God created Him to be. His connectivity with God was not enough to help him succeed in God’s plans for His life.
Friend, no matter how gifted, called, powerful, intelligent, or hardworking you are, if you do not have a right relationship in your life, you will still fail. One major thing divine support will always do in our lives, is to move good people towards us to offer us help wherever and whenever we need it.
Adam was given Eve to help unlock him. She came in as a wife. You will need someone to unlock you too. It may not be a wife or a husband, but you will need someone; someone to bring out the best in your life.
Yes, someone to serve as God’s support for the manifestation of His plans for your life.
You will need a seed of the one and only True God, and Jesus Christ who He has sent in your life, you will not need a weed, and we will come to that. You will need a right relationship in a pastor, a wife, a husband, a friend, a colleague in the office, an uncle, a father, a mother or etc., if you will not be stagnant in life or fail.
God said it is not good to be alone in life. If you say it is good, you will never become what He created you to be. Some do not say, “it is good” with their mouth, but with some toxic behavior.
THEY DO THINGS THAT KEEPS EVEN THE MOST KIND AND PATIENT PEOPLE AWAY FROM THEM.
Understand that, if you use toxic behavior to keep God given people away from your life, you will live a miserable life on earth. Let no one deceive you, even the most patient and kind people have their limits. If you do not have the behavior to keep them in your life, you will lose them eventually.
I have come to realize that, people with toxic behaviors that they do not see it’s there, or know it’s there, but pride will not let them deal with, always end up with the wrong people in life. They have a way of opening the doors of their lives to Satan to plant a wrong relationship in their lives, and bring ruin.
Friend, one of the worst things that can ever happen to us, is to have the wrong persons in or around our lives. One wrong relationship is all we need to be completely destroyed in life. We do not need all the demons in hell. So, we must be careful.
There is a huge Bible sense in Matthew chapter 12:26 to 30, that we need to unpack for further guidance. The scripture says;
“But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.”
“So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
“But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘” Matthew 13:26-30 NKJV
This scripture is about two kinds of people; the wheat people and the tare people.
WE CAN SAY, “WEED RELATIONSHIPS” AND “SEED RELATIONSHIPS.”
Seed relationships are God sent, they are usually planted in our lives to function as God’s seed of mercy, so that we will not be messed up by a fallen life. But weed relationships are different. They are like Delilah in the life of Samson, Jonadab in the life of David’s rapist son Amnon, Jezebel in the life of Israel, and etc.
They represent the wrong people destiny people must not have in life; weeds we must not allow to grow in or around our lives.
Between 1984 and 1993 my family was involved in a lot of farming in the young City of Abuja then. When I say Family, I meant my Dad, My Mum and siblings. My Dad was a police officer and had just being transferred from Calabar, in Cross River state South-south of Nigeria, to Abuja.
The government of the day was still trying to convince people to move from Lagos Nigeria to the young Capital city, Abuja, so there was enough land to use in growing crops and dealing with hunger then. Food was relatively cheap. With very little money you can buy a lot. But we had no money to even buy.
So, we had to grow virtually every Nigerian crop we could grow to survive. The only things we did not grow were, onions, Oil, salt and water. That is hilarious but really true. During those farming years, I learnt some lessons that are helping me now to understand God, and His ways.
Apart from the spiritual lessons, there were also agricultural lessons that had some spiritual truths to glean from. The lesson was in the different kinds of weeds that grew around our crops. In the days of weeding, we removed those weeds so that the crops could grow.
Yes, we carefully removed all kinds of weeds, even the ones that look like our crops, for our crops to grow. After few weeks of weeding, you see the crops growing beautifully, and producing bountifully in their seasons. It taught me so much about a man or woman of destiny.
Truly, the life of a man or woman of destiny is like those crops.
Satan has a way of planting weeds around us. Those weeds are the many wrong relationships we bring into our lives either through false marriages, business connections, and related things. If those relationships are not weeded out of our lives, we will never grow beautifully in life or produce bountifully.
It is important to note that, if Satan plants a leper, a person with spiritual discharge, or one who is fun of touching the dead around you, as a relationship, you will be sorry. The wisdom I gathered from those farming years made me to understand that weeding is part of life.
IF YOU DO NOT MAKE SEASONAL WEEDING AS PART OF YOUR LIFE, YOU WILL NEVER GROW TO BECOME WHAT GOD PREPLANNED THAT YOU BECOME.
You must wake up in life from time to time, to weed certain people out of your life. Sometimes, you are not the one who brings them into your life. You just find them growing around you like the weeds in our farm.
No matter how they came, a weed is a weed. You must wake up to weed them out else you become a weed yourself, and find people weeding you out of the very places God has planted you. Maybe this will help you.
I have come to discover that every relationship (spiritual, marital, social, economical, or whatever) does four things to us;
1. They divide us positively or negatively.
2. They subtract from us negatively or positively.
3. They add to us negatively or positively.
4. They multiply us negatively or positively.
If a relationship has been dividing, subtracting from, adding to, or multiplying you negatively, apply the “weeding principle.” In other words, weed them away to save your life (the crops). You can only love your neighbor “as” you love yourself.
In simple terms, if you have not loved yourself, you will not be able to love your neighbor. You will be hypocritical trying to love your neighbor. The principle of seasonal weeding is very important in dealing with wrong relationships, irrespective of who they are.
I remember one day I went into our rice farm and discovered some weeds growing along with the rice. Honestly, I did not know they were weeds because they looked alike. But as they grew together, the weeds became very clear to us.
WE CAREFULLY MOVED INTO THE FARM AND REMOVED THEM AWAY TO SAVE THE CROPS.
Some wrong relationships are like that; they look right in our sight when they first appear. Maybe because of our humanity or spiritual limitations; we usually take them to be God’s will. But as they grow, their true nature begins to emerge. We begin to see how wrong we have been.
This has nothing to do with right relationships that have become sick, but wrong ones that looked right when they first appeared in our lives. If we do not carefully weed them out, they will grow up with us and become so attached that we will not be able to weed them out, leading to terrible regrets.
Many people do not know that time is one of the greatest revelator of things. As people press into our lives, time has a way of proving who they really are to us. It has a way of proving us wrong too.
When time proves you wrong concerning any wrong relationship you erroneously took for a right one, you must apply the principle of weeding to it, else you regret at the end not doing it.
I hope the LORD has spoken to us this morning. May every word written become a book of wisdom in your mental shelve in Jesus precious name! AMEN!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURAL PARABLE YOUR MEDITATION TODAY:
“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.”
“But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.”
“So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
“But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘” Matthew 13:24-30 NKJV