In the next few paragraphs, I am going to share the “love story” of a dear friend with you to help you examine if you’re sticking to a relationship, job, location, position or instruction that God has moved on from. In order to benefit from this story, you need to be open-minded and willing to let go of any bias you may have.
Ready?
Let’s get started.
Sometime in 2016, I connected with a lovely lady whom I met through an online Christian ladies group that we both belonged to. Her name is Ifeoma. At the time we met, she was in a committed relationship that was headed for the altar. If I remember correctly, she and her fiance who later became a friend too, had planned to wed that year. However, there were many oppositions to their plans.
Both of them are Christians, firebred believers who are led by the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, both of them were inspired by God to co-found an online Singles Ministry – LightBearers Ministry, which made a huge difference in the lives of many youths within and outside Abuja. For me personally, it was with LightBearers that I attended my first Singles retreat tagged “When Singles Pray”, and some other refreshing Singles’ Hangout that help a believer to have a balanced Christian and social life.
For more than two years, Ifeoma and her fiance kept praying and trusting God to straighten the crooked paths preventing their marriage. They also involved many spiritual mentors and friends to pray along with them. And we did.
We prayed and trusted God for His intervention in the obstacles to my friend’s marriage plans, or for a new instruction. By late 2018, God started speaking to Ifeoma to move on from the relationship.
Hold up, let me bring this to a better perspective.
This is a relationship she has invested more than 8 years of her life into: spiritually, emotionally, financially and socially. Everyone who knew her, knew the fiance. Plus they co-founded a Singles’ Ministry. We all at LightBearers knew them as “papa” and “mama”, only that papa and mama were still waiting on God to bring to pass their marriage. The perfection of their beautiful union was the secret and open prayer of most of us.
Yet, here was God asking her to move on from the relationship.
Where would she start from?
How would she explain to him?
How would she explain to their members and others who knew them as a couple?
How would they continue running the ministry?
Ifeoma cried. She wailed bitterly. And she prayed more earnestly.
She went for one personal retreat after another, still what she heard from God didn’t change.
Finally, she surrendered to God’s will and asked Him to take over. And He did… With more instructions.
First, to end the relationship.
When she obeyed and broke up with her fiance in December 2018, the VERY NEXT DAY, she met her current husband.
The guy had seen her at the radio station where she does her shows and tried to connect with her, but everyone there told him that she was in a relationship so they refused to give him her number. He decided to go through Facebook by sending her a Facebook message which she didn’t respond to till after she ended her relationship. And that began the new story God had in stock for her.
In quick succession, the friendship progressed to a relationship, then to courtship and then to marriage. Swiftly, everything was done.
Introduction: June 2019
Traditional Marriage: 4 September, 2019
White wedding: 26 October, 2019
After their introduction, God further instructed her to shut down the LightBearers WhatsApp group where we had our meetings, teachings and discussions. And she obeyed.
Today, she is happily married to Mr Michael Modebe. In the middle of this year 2020, God blessed their union with a bouncing baby boy.
All her years and tears of waiting and praying for a good and godly life partner have been rewarded, despite the unexpected turn of events. God is too faithful to fail His own!
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Perhaps you’re wondering, did Ifeoma really hear from God before embarking on her relationship cum courtship with the first guy? Here is my humble submission:
Sometimes, God can speak to us about a thing: a matter, a place, a person, a job, etc., and after sometime, He’ll lead us on from that thing because in His plan, it was a temporary fix, not a permanent instruction. We see that when God asked Joseph the Carpenter to move his family to Egypt to escape the sword of Herod.
At some other times, God can plan something to be long term, permanent for us. However, when we violate a condition for that promise to be fulfilled, that promise will become truncated. We see this demonstrated repeatedly in the relationship between the Israelites and God, and in the promise of God to Eli, king Saul and king David.
At some other times, God can say “Yes” to something and later say “No”, simply because He is God. We see this in the life of King Hezekiah when God told prophet Isaiah to inform him that he would die. We also see this when God instructed Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac.
Finally, at some other times, it could be that what we thought we heard from God was Him permitting us to go on in our own will, not His explicit will. However, the more we yield to God and trust Him with our plans, the more He conforms us to His perfect will.
As Christians, we should be able to distinguish each of these leadings when we receive instructions from God. In your relationship with God, you must be discerning to know when God asks you to move on from where He had led you to. You must be sensitive to know when a relationship or season in your life is over. You must be willing to leave where God has left… Not because the person or place is bad, but because their role in the script of your life is over. You must also be willing to return to where God had asked you to leave.
Quit worrying about what people would say or not say. That is the undoing of many. Worrying over how you’d look in the eyes of men has prevented many believers from obeying God’s instructions; don’t join that statistic.
Till I come your way again next week, do well to prioritize God’s instructions over the opinions of men. I love you!
