HOPE IS ALIVE!!

 

Hope has been staring at me right in the face for a very long-long time now.  But I was completely blinded to see. More often than not, the challenges in life tend to block our sight from eventual possibilities. Well I can’t even begin to pour blames on anybody because we’re all human, blood runs through our veins. Well this is going to be the story of my life for the past one year. It’s a great privilege to be used by God himself in other to reach out. In the bible it was categorically stated that God chastises the one he loves. For you to come out refined, mehn, you will have to pass through a lot of purification stage. Crude oil doesn’t just come out to be fuel; diesel, petrol or even Vaseline, it undergoes fractional distillation under intense heat about 16,500 degrees Celsius, (that’s alotta heat). I’m not here now to begin to teach Chemistry, this is the story of my life.

From my previous post Medley; this, is like a sequel of it. I talked about my life a bit there. I was really glad, having seen the comments on it, recommendations and previews, it’s amazing. One can almost say the education system in Nigeria is messed up, but we are Christians and every word that proceeds out of our mouth should be seasoned with salt to edify the hearer (col4:6). Honestly I’ve had it up to here in my chest, there is a lot I want to talk about but let’s just stick to the title.

God indeed cares about his children. He will never forget you nor forsake you his plans for you spread like sheets across the sky. The devil who is a constant accuser of the brethren will continue to taunt you and make your journey towards fulfilling purpose a daunting task, now that’s where Gods word comes in. The efficacy of his word cannot be overemphasized, you see, the thing that amazes me in this Christian race is the fact that it is so practical and everything is living. I serve a living God.

I will not trade the fellowship I have with the father for anything. God will speak to you if you let Him to be resident on the inside of you. As a Christian teenager life has being great, in fact I can almost say I have the best life (probably, that was not what you wanted to hear) but it’s true! Anytime and every time I walk pass people or through people I must be noticed. Now, this is not to bombard myself with praise, I mean, what gain is it? On one of my post The Real Teen I spoke about teenagers in general from a teen’s point of view under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, personal study and experience.

Teenagers all over the world today struggle for acceptance, most people don’t know that, they just think their obstreperousity and rebellious nature is as a result of teen-hood. I disagree, this folks are struggling with identity issues and until they come in contact with the master Jesus all is not going to be well. Look out for a Christian teen today and you will see the calm spirited nature of Christ residing in him.

Hope is Alive! You can never be downtrodden, despondent or hopeless in Christ Jesus. I said I was going to share my story; going to Canada to study medicine has always being a desire in my heart but knowing very well that my parents will not be able to afford 3 years pre-med and then another 4 years in med school proper, now that’s even if your application for citizenship is granted I still kept pushing. I prayed fasted trusted God and even helped Him(lol), I always say to myself that I’m going to try to be one of the most fun-filled dad’s around because I’ve got plenty of story to tell my kids.

Yes about Canada, it was a really pertinent desire in my heart. At first nobody ever took me serious but one time the table just turned. I was riveted at the action of my parents. As a young Christian I was always running with “Faith without work is dead” now my parents all of a sudden caught interest even though we did not have seven million to pay every year for the seven years I will be away we went ahead to get my int’l passport ready. As a young man of 16 then I was excited about the giant stride and the leap of faith my parents took and pulled. After getting the passport ready the next thing was to take an English proficiency exam known as IELTS (Int’l English language testing system) to aid your application. Apparently everything costs money it was around #48,000 in 2014, I trusted God to do this one for me too. Weeks of trusting and praying, now my trusting God was to get a complete scholarship that will take me to Canada to study medicine for free (that’s a big mountain to pull for a sixteen year old) well, I have seen God move in great areas in my life so it wasn’t difficult to trust. I waited, literarily, along the way I became analytical, thinking about where the scholarship will come from when I haven’t even applied, I had not even taken IELTS yet, time was running. I wanted to live this country so bad; so many things were just running through my mind. That brings me to something; every single thing you ask from God there is a motive, now if that motive isn’t genuine, remember God sees the heart better. If your motive isn’t pure don’t expect anything from God. So I needed to take IELTS  #48,000, this time money wasn’t the issue but my parents were becoming skeptical about the travel plans we were making, not that they did not trust God but they needed to do what parents do “looking before you leap”. Notwithstanding I did not give up I kept pressing with my God. I told God on a Tuesday in September last year (I can’t really remember the specific date) that I needed to take the second IELTS in the next month. In the whole of September nothing happened, it got to October still nothing happened (you know that fear that will grip you?) I became scared thinking God wasn’t hearing me.

Time was drawing in pretty fast, a week to the close of registration I poured out my heart to Him, I basically just told God how I felt and then I thanked Him in advance for the registration-now that was a Friday. Saturday came nothing happened, and then on Sunday I was in the teen’s church as usual when one of the teachers sent me to the cafeteria to get something. While I was on my way before I even got to the door I met an aunty who has being super nice to me in prayers, moral talks, she was like a mentor. To cut the whole story short; she asked “how far have we gone with IELTS?” I just stared at the floor and replied”no” her next words were “why? What happened?”I couldn’t give a single reply and the next thing she said was “call me on Monday we need to get you ready”. That could only have been God not man. Within minutes what I was trusting God for-four months came into reality.

I just want to state something here, when you believe God for a particular thing-take your eyes off men as your helper or people who will bring you to the light again. I trusted God to take IELTS, now that lady was the least of all the people I had in mind God was going to use. You know why God used her? Because He is God and He wants all the glory ascribed to Him alone, it gives God a lot of joy when we acknowledge that it could have being only Him and no one else who would have being able to bring us out of a predicament. He wants to take all the glory in your life. A thousand years in our sight is like a day before God-He doesn’t work by our chronological time so, have no fear He is still on the throne.

Some things came up and I changed my mind I did not take the IELTS anymore but God proved himself worthy. I hope you’ve being greatly blessed by this journey of IELTS?

With love.

-ITOFA