Bundles of Joy (3)

Bundles of Joy is a series of Gods great works in my life and our lives (my family). It is aimed at revealing to people the prevailing power of Gods Word and His involvement in every details of our lives. God bless you.

After proposing to my wife in 2004, and commencing the courtship on the 6th of December 2004, we settled on a date we intended to get married. We were convinced that if we settled on a date and prayed towards it, God will work it out for us. Honestly, humanly I didn’t see the 29th September 2007 date feasible for many reasons. In 2004, I was still in the final year of my Bachelors, I haven’t gone for the compulsory federal youth service (NYSC), no job in sight, and all we were just doing was believing God and walking in faith.
You can read the miracle of my job in Bundles of Joy (2); how I never had to look for job for one day after my NYSC.

But just before I got employed in 2006, I had received an admission letter for a Masters program in the US and I was only trying to pursue a scholarship to go with it.
At work, I was informed that part of the schedule of training for me is that I will be sent for a Masters program abroad as a staff and not just on scholarship! Let me say it in another way, I will be paid to study for my own masters!

I was excited but had mixed feelings when I considered our plan of getting married in 2007. I didn’t want to go for 18months and then come to marry…, or marry only to leave my newly married wife for 18months not to mention the winter season! To my amazement, I was made to realize that if I was married before travelling, I would be allowed to go with my wife. Quickly I informed my then to-be wife of the good news and we had to shift our intended date forward in order to meet up with the logistics. We had our court wedding on the 13th January 2007 and sealed our marriage in church on the 7th April 2007. In accordance to our Christian values we celebrate the 7th April 2007.

God’s blessing was so much that bringing it forward was not an emergency; it is marvelous in my sight.

Satisfaction Cometh!

For my people will be as long-lived as trees,
my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work
Isaiah 65:22b (The Message)

In mid November 2008, the Lord showed me this scripture and it lighted me up instantly. I would encourage you to read the same chapter from verse 17 to 25 especially in the message version (you can click this link: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isa%2065&version=65).
The first thing that comes to mind is the question ‘who are the chosen ones?’ If it did not come straight to you that you are chosen, then you would like to check out 1 Peter 2:9 for confirmation

But you are the one chosen by God... (The Message).

Invariably as Christians we are chosen by God.
Now in this verse God tells us explicitly what His chosen ones will have – satisfaction in their work.
This would mean that irrespective of what the company policy is (ask Daniel in Babylon), irrespective of the nature of your boss (ask Jacob with his father-in-law), the situation affecting everybody (ask Isaac in the time of famine) or even the kind of job you do (ask Joseph the Egyptian slave) God said you will have satisfaction in your work and that settles it.
Quit worrying whether you are in the right job or not. Instead, start confessing the Word of God in your life everyday as you go to work, and you will see God’s Word prevailing over every situation.

Bundles of Joy (2)

Bundles of Joy is a series of Gods great works in my life and our lives (my family). It is aimed at revealing to people the prevailing power of Gods Word and His involvement in every details of our lives. God bless you.

In February 2006, while observing my compulsory federal youth service (NYSC) in a village down the south of Nigeria, a fellow youth service member informed me about an advert in the oil and gas industry. I applied for it and trusted God. Later, I was called for the test in April of the same year. I wrote the test and kept on trusting God. I was further invited for the interview; now I knew God was up to something.
At the interview, I was uniquely dressed as I was the only one with a short-sleeve shirt and a tie without a suit. In addition to my less advantageous circumstance, I was the only one yet to conclude my federal service at that time. In all these I held on to God’s promises for my life.
After the interview, I wasn't contacted for weeks, I decided to call up some of the co-applicants I met during the interview. I learnt some had already been called for medical checks and even collected their appointment letters.
Well, as a grateful child of God, I thanked Him for giving me the opportunity to experience an interview of such calibre, believing that it would be useful for future interviews. One afternoon (still during my federal service), I got a phone call informing me that I passed the interview. I was further told that they have been trying to reach me for several weeks but have been receiving a wrong number reply from the other end only to later discover that they have been trying a wrong number. It was like a dream.
I collected my appointment letter the same day I collected my discharged certificate from the NYSC. It is the Lords doing and it is marvelous in my sight.

Lessons from 'Starting Over' by Bob Gass (2)

How to Prevent Organizational Dry Rot
Have an effective program for the recruitment and development of talent; people are the ultimate source of renewal.

Don’t kill the spark of individuality.

Cultivate a climate where it is comfortable to ask questions.

Don’t carve the internal structure in stone; most structures are designed to solve problems that no longer exist.

Have a good system of internal communication.

Don’t become prisoners of procedures. In most organizations, the rule book grow fatter as the ideas grow fewer.

Combat tendencies toward the vested interest of a few; in a long run everyone’s best interest in the continuing vitality of the group.

Be more interested in what you are becoming, than what you have been.

An organization runs on 3 things: motivation, conviction and moral; each person has to believe that his talent means something and that he is recognized by the whole.

The profit-and-loss statement is not the true measure of your success – fulfilling your God-given purpose and making daily progress toward you goal is.

· We fail because of a negative outlook

§ Your words create the climate you live in

· We fail because we are in the wrong place

§ Often failure is a result of mismatched abilities, interests, personalities or values. Think about that carefully

· We fail because of a lack of commitment

§ God is not limited by your limitations. God’s neither dependent on what is have, nor limited by what you don’t have

§ Just because you’re damaged doesn’t mean you’re not delivered. No, it just means you’re not yet fully developed. You can be delivered in one area and struggling in another – yet God will still use you for his glory

· We fail because of our inability or unwillingness to change

Top Ten Strategies for Dealing with a Dead Horse
Buy a stronger whip

Change riders

Appoint a committee to study the horse

Find a team to revive the horse

Send out a memo declaring the horse really isn’t dead

Hire an expensive consultant and find ‘the real problem’

Harness several dead horses together for increased speed and efficiency

Rewrite the standard definition for a live horse

Declare the horse to be better, faster and cheaper when dead

Promote the horse to a supervising position

Until you have water in your own well, you’ve got to draw it from other men’s well.

Words paint pictures.

People need to see it as well as hear it.

The Difference is Attitude

· There always comes a time when giving up is easier than standing up, and giving in looks more attractive than digging in. In those moments, character may be the only thing you have to draw on to keep you going.

· It is not just enough to stay in the ring that’s commendable, but if that’s all you do, you’ll get your brains knocked out and still not win. The secret is to get back up and do things differently next time.

· Experience is not what happens to you. Experience is what you do with what happens to you – Aldous Huxely.

· If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. · By failing to plan, you are planning to fail – Benjamin Franklin. Keep on Keeping on

· Life is about 10% of what happens to us and 90% of how we respond to it.

· With the right attitude, no barrier is too high, no valley is too deep, no goal is too extreme and no challenge is too great.

· Serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Bundles of Joy (1)

Bundles of Joy is a series of Gods great works in my life and our lives (my family). It is aimed at revealing to people the prevailing power of Gods Word and His involvement in every details of our lives. God bless you.

I remember desiring to go for an international professional conference in the US from Nigeria even as an undergraduate in 2004; so I applied to the US embassy. Apart from the fact that I had never traveled outside the country with my international passport, I have been refused a British visa on it before. I was so disadvantaged that I didn’t even have any financial statement to take to the embassy. Many people gave me different suggestions on what to do on my passport to make it successful. If I had heeded to those suggestions, I wouldn’t be testifying today.
In addition, with faith, I went to the embassy without a financial statement. I went with just a letter from my father that says that I am his son and that he would sponsor my trip to the US. My father with his over 30 years of traveling experience was certain that I would be refused but he still gave me the application fee so that I won't be discouraged.

That morning of the interview God gave me two scriptures

Isaiah 61:9 All who see them shall acknowledge them, That they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed (NKJV) and

Haggai 2:8 'The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,' says the LORD of hosts (NKJV)

With tears in my eyes praising Him for success, I prepared to leave for the interview. At the interview, all my highlighted weak points were simply overlooked. I was predominantly asked questions that were related to my course of study in school, and eventually to the glory of God, I was asked to come and pick up my visa the following week.

It was like a dream! As I was praising God, it occurred to me that I still had the hurdle of airfare-payment to cross, knowing fully well that my father didn’t mean what he wrote in the letter to the embassy. At this point I started to put in all my effort, writing to individuals and corporate bodies for sponsorship. Some people advised me to go and not to come back (even my father suggested it). The thought of going and not coming didn’t sound logical to me after spending almost five years in school and only having one semester exam to write; to eventually abscond? Never!

God then directed someone to me who suggested that I give a seed of a hundredth of my estimated travel expenses. So I calculated it to be N400,000 and gave a seed of N4,000. Just about a week to the conference date, I received a call from my father that he has discussed it with my Mum and they would raise the money for me to go. It sounded unusually good to be true, and perhaps filled with some sort of suspicious intentions in my own view; so I had to make serious clarifications of their intention. I told them I was going just for the conference and coming back. In fact, they told me it won’t be enough to go for the conference alone, that I should also go for a drop box approach for a British visa since I now have a US visa; to enable me pay a visit to London as well.

Friends it was like a dream, in two weeks I traveled to three different countries in three different continents.

It may not seem a big deal to you because of your status, it was to me back then.

Glory be to God.