Resonance

Category: Pain

  • Trusting God in the Process Even When It Doesn’t Make Sense

    Earlier this week, God has been putting it on my heart to write about trusting the process and hoping against hope. So that is what I’m going to share with you. I’m going to give examples for you to realize that you’re actually on the right track. We are called believers, not feelers. There are going to be seasons where everything is going to feel like it’s not in the right place but you are actually on the right track and you are in good company because most of the people you even know in Scriptures were on this exact path.

    The first person I would like to point to is that one precious believer during the time of Jesus who saw Him being beaten mercilessly and was looking from afar, praying sincerely for His rescue. However, God did not answer that prayer the way the person wanted because He had a bigger, eternal plan.

    The Bigger Picture

    That person is not mentioned in Scriptures but there was definitely somebody there who was praying to God that “Oh God, this guy is actually righteous. He’s holy, there’s nothing wrong that He has done. He has been doing good for as long as I have known Him. Please save Him”. He saw Jesus go through all the brutality, carry the cross, and die on the cross. He continued, “God, this is the right time to show up. If you show up right now, everybody will believe that you actually sent Him.”

    He must have continued, “God, let Him just mysteriously come off the Cross and then, you know, be in white clothing and say that, ‘Yes, it is true, I am actually from God’. Oh oh God, please answer this prayer.” It was a genuine, sincere prayer to actually save somebody. The person saw how brokenhearted Mary was and was like, “Oh God, look at this mother. What have they done to deserve this? Even people as wicked as Barabbas have been set free. If you’ve done it for Barabbas, please do it for Jesus.”

    Trust God in the Darkness what He Said in the Light

    But you know what? That prayer went unanswered. In fact, that day Jesus was buried. The following day there was no noise whatsoever. It was like a normal day. No show, no sign, nothing. So what the person would say is, “oh God, so Jesus is actually dead? So that is all? God, I don’t understand.” God expected that person to trust Him in the process because how you want it to go is not better than how God wants it to go.

    Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane also asked God if there’s another way He could do it without drinking the cup of God’s wrath. That notwithstanding, God has His way of how things should go. Sometimes it’s very difficult to explain the entire process to somebody who just does not just feel how the thing should go. So God may not explain so much to you because he has already given you a Word. You need to trust God in the darkness what he told you in the light. He expects that you hold on to the Word because His Word must test you. That’s why he told you when the skies were blue before the days where there will be no sunshine.

    You need to trust Him — what He said when your mind was straight — now that everything looks confusing and clumsy and you want a sign and want God to explain. Whatever He says now, you actually won’t understand. You will say, “but God, You are omnipotent. You can do all things, so why don’t You just do it now? God, You know all things, so why are You allowing this to happen?”

    That is where we will try to blackmail Him. So He has taught every one of us to trust Him in darkness what He told us in the light. The reason why God did not answer that man is because he had a bigger, better plan. It was not about showing Himself strong in the midst of just those few people who had gathered. No. It was a transgenerational agenda. It was an eternal script that He will raise up from the dead and conquer death. A bigger and greater purpose.

    Painful but Necessary

    Even though you have good intentions and genuine reasons, believe you me, God’s plans are better. Every time we subject ourselves to God’s Will, we expect everything to go well. But how God orchestrates things is certainly not how we think it should be because with God, Romans 8:17, if we share in His sufferings, we share in His glory.

    At the end of the day, you will stand somewhere and share your testimony. People will not understand what you went through because you will even say it in some simple plain words. You will not look like what you’ve been through. But trust me, everybody who has walked with God has gone through the process. At the end of the day, you will also be glad God took you through the process.

    The process is painful but necessary. It’s very necessary but it’s still painful. It’s painful. It does not make sense to the human mind but that is God’s agenda for you. He even prunes those who bear much fruit so they will bear more fruit. It’s not shameful to admit that it’s painful because the Bible says “no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it”.

    Joseph’s Thirteen-Year Preparation for Eighty Years of Glory

    Look at Joseph. God gave him a wonderful dream of dominion but from that day onwards, everything went downhill for 13 years straight — betrayal, slavery, false accusation, imprisonment. He went from being hated by his brothers to being thrown into a pit. He was sold into slavery by his own brothers while God watched on. He was supposed to live as a slave till he died. Then Potiphar’s wife made matters even worse. He was thrown into prison for life. Yet, God was emptying Joseph of all pride and childishness.

    If Joseph had skipped the process, he would have carried immaturity to the palace and brought shame to the God who lifted him. But through suffering, God moulded him so that when he finally rose to power at 30 years old, he reigned wisely for 80 years. Jesus also suffered for a few hours, but now He is seated at the right hand of the Father, with all authority in Heaven and on earth. See, this season won’t last forever, and your glory days will far outweigh the circumstances. Indeed, the sufferings of this present time cannot be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).

    Let me show you what it means for everything to work together for our good. It wasn’t God’s Will that you’ll be in the circumstances that you are in but He will use the circumstance as a healthy tool to shape you into what He wants you to be. All things (the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly) will work together for good. What good? It’s not referring to the end of a Nigeria movie where all your enemies die and you end up as rich nigga.

    The good of God is explained in the next verse: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son”. God foreknew you and your story and predestined it to end as a way of conforming you to be more like Christ. This is what He wants to achieve at the end of the day with everything He allows you to go through, provided you continue to surrender to His Will regardless of the circumstances.

    When everything is going opposite to what God promised, trust is crucial. Psalm 25:3 says, “No one who trusts in You will ever be disgraced.” The process might be slow, confusing, and painful, but God comes through always. Trust is not based on sight; it is based on the unchanging nature of God. It’s about believing His character even when you don’t see His hand.

    Trust the Doctor — Even If You Don’t Understand the Surgery


    Look at Abraham. God promised him descendants as numerous as the stars, yet he waited 25 years for just one child. Why? Because it wasn’t about just having Isaac, it was about becoming the father of many nations. It was about making him a blessing and giving Abraham a name that would echo through all generations. Since Abraham’s generation till now, every generation that has come to earth knows about Abraham. He’s more famous than all of the people who go to the devil for fame. Today, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all trace their faith back to Abraham. God indeed gave him a great name and yet, during his lifetime, barely did anyone know him because he was a nomad on the Promise Land.

    One challenge of our generation is that we have not been properly taught about the necessity of process. We are conditioned for quick results because we live in the era of instant gratification but in the Kingdom of God, endurance is key. Nobody today would want to wait 25 years like Abraham did, yet greatness demands patience. You should know that if God is disciplining us, it’s because we are not bastards. Process is not punishment — it is preparation. So yes, you are actually on the right track. You are in a good process. As long as you are going through this, it shows that God is killing certain things in you that will be a disadvantage to you in the coming seasons.

    When God is working on you, it’s like a painful surgery. Until this scrutiny – this surgery – is done, He will not want you to get up from the hospital bed. Even though the surgery is painful, it is definitely necessary. If the Doctor tried to explain every detail of the surgery process, you would run away. That’s why He asks for trust. If you knew how long some seasons would last, you would give up today. But God has good plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11). Trust Him even when nothing makes sense. Trust Him when the darkness is thick. Trust Him because He is good, and His plans are far better than anything you could orchestrate for yourself. Stay the course. God is faithful. He has a track record in these matters; you are not the first.

    You need to trust that yes, He has your best intentions at heart and He has plans of good, not of evil, and He will bring you to an expected end come what may. I hope that this has been a blessing to you ❣️

  • Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?

    Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?

    None of us wants to be in calm waters all our lives. Where there is no challenge, there is boredom. Passion dies whenever there’s nothing new to try.

    There ought to be something that looks bigger than us. Something that alters our mindset at the end of the journey. Something that challenges us, not just to do better, but BE better; to live to our utmost potential. Something experiential that challenges our perspective to something we’ve never seen before but was always there. Something that is worth living for. Something that is worth dying for.

    There’s gotta be something.

    But why does it have to be this hard? It’s like I’m always at my wit’s end. It’s like my bones are crushing, my teeth gnashing. It’s like the only reason why I have no reason to live is the only reason why I am living.

    Left to me alone, I would give up but I just can’t give up now. There’s something that keeps leading me on, telling me there’s gotta be something to all of this. Giving up hurts more, and failure is better than regret. It will definitely be worth the risk. What I become in the process is far greater than what I have as the product.

    Life is just like giving birth. After so much pain we thought we could never bear, what we are expecting finally becomes a reality, but in a way, we certainly did not expect. That is when we realise that the more the sweat, the greater the “sweet”.

    The joy at the end is far more unbearable than the pain we went through. The pain now just becomes a passed memory, but the joy becomes a present reality.

  • Hurt & Pain

    Hurt & Pain

    One of the lessons we need to learn very quick in life is that we cannot avoid getting hurt. It is only those who are wounded that get healed. It’s only those who mourn that get comforted. First time I heard the song, “Brokenness is what I long for”, I was confused. It makes complete sense now. Pain is inevitable. Sometimes they could have been avoided if we had taken the right decision, but we can’t reverse time. What we can do is learn the lesson the long way and make better decisions in the future.

    But some pain is absolutely inevitable. No man has never walked the earth without encountering that pain. The pain from the passing on of a loved one. The pain of losing someone close to you; someone you trusted; someone you thought would always be there. There is also the pain of false accusations. When even the people close to you speak negative about you. It is not just an African thing. It is everywhere. Prepare yourself for it. It happened to Jesus too.

    First of all, when you lose a loved one or any other inevitable circumstance come your way, allow yourself to feel pain. Wallowing in pain is bad; not allowing yourself to feel pain is equally bad. Immediately you fall into such a situation and you “swallow” the pain, you store it in your threshold. One day that threshold will be full. It may be triggered by a totally innocent person or situation. It can cause you to break down for a relatively longer period of time. What you would feel will not be pain but grief. This is certainly not the way to deal with pain.

    To Jesus, weeping for Lazarus was not doubt. It was humanity. People confuse faith with aggression. When such a situation arises, they try to act all tough in the name of religion. If you develop that habit, you will involve yourself in weeping behind closed doors while pretending to be strong in front of people. Avoid that trap. Many pastors have lived in this trap. It is a living hell. Always be sincere and honest about how you feel, especially to yourself.
    That is not say live your life by how you feel. But how you feel often says a lot about how you are and how you think.

    In the same vein, when you start rising on the ladder of destiny and people you cherish stand to point accusing fingers at you, allow yourself to feel the pain. You don’t want to store pain in your heart. You want to store love instead. And sometimes pain comes to crack our hearts open in order to reveal the content; what we are made of. People often say, “they don’t really know how I am. That’s why they are fooling with me.” God has been looking in your heart since, and now every hidden thing you didn’t even know was inside will be revealed in that moment. God is in the business of winning hearts and giving His heart of flesh for your hearts of stone.

    Never forget this in this situation; don’t talk back to your accusers. After all, some of what they are saying will be true. When Jesus told Zaacheus that He would stay in his house, his own town people called him a sinner. Zaacheus will be hurt. He will be embarrassed. It was really shameful. But Zaacheus never tried to defend himself or even talk back to the people. He spoke to Jesus rather. If anybody would have listened at all, it would have been Jesus. Jesus knows your pain because He feels it too. He is one with you. Open your heart to Him about it.

    I love you ❤

  • What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

    What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

    What you are will be tested.

    Circumstances serve a very useful purpose. It comes to test what you are and what you’re made of.

    Proverbs 24:10 says, “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small”.

    Circumstances come to test your strength not your weakness. Whether you become stronger or weaker depends on what you made of the circumstance.

    Both the gold and the wood got burnt; the wood was drained but the gold was refined. The same boiling water that hardens the egg softens the yam.

    Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.

    I love you ❤️

  • You Are Not What You Go Through

    You Are Not What You Go Through

    Some circumstances we go through in life are inevitable. No matter your religion, race, color, gender, association or expectations, our story is not unique. Someone may be going through worse, but hei..there’s never a point in our lives where we aren’t going through something of a sort.

    Circumstances don’t obey the law of sowing and reaping.

    You do not have to be worthy of what you go through in life. What you go through does not care about you. It does not care what you care. So when you are going through something that seems unfair to what you are, it is nothing new.

    Circumstances do not define you.

    What you go through is not what you are. It’s always important to be able to differentiate between the two. The fact that you go through ups and downs does not mean even your emotions should follow suite.

    James said “count it all joy when trials come your way” (James 1:2). Why should you be so anxious when you go through a difficult situation? We have the power to live above our situation, not the other way round. What you are should never change or fluctuate because of circumstances.

    Our dog’s ability to be always happy to see us regardless is extremely underrated.

    You actually have the power to define your circumstance. How? By your reactions toward it. 1 Thess 5:18 says “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s Will for you in Christ Jesus.”

    It said, “in all things give thanks”, not “for all things give thanks”. God didn’t say thank Him for that accident. He said have the heart and lifestyle of thanksgiving, even if you have an accident.

  • It Is Okay To Not Be Okay

    It Is Okay To Not Be Okay

    Lecrae’s song with Kari Jobe “Broken” starts with the verse, “we’re all broken”. It’s true. When you lost that loved one; when your closest friend walked away; when you were insulted or assaulted for no reason; when you were harshly spoken against by family; when you failed that test and your problems piled up, you were probably broken. Right now, as you read this you’re probably down.

    A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken. Proverbs 15:13 KJV

    But that is not the end of the story. Winners don’t quit and quitters don’t win. What you must know for sure is that life throws new problems at us while we are still working on the old ones. That’s how come we are like, ” why me?”, “why this particular time?”. The reality is that problems are the human definition of an opportunity to grow. Comfort zone is a beautiful place but nothing grows there. Challenges spice up life and make you discover something already in you that you never knew of.

    Sometimes it’s okay to cry. “Blessed are those who weep, for they shall be comforted.” If you don’t weep, how can you be comforted? There’s no point in appearing strong on the outside when you’re broken on the inside. It will make things worse in the near future. “God is closer to the brokenhearted”. The Holy Spirit is your Comforter. He will restore your soul. Cry on His Shoulders.

    Cry on Him ❤

  • How To Comfort A Friend

    How To Comfort A Friend

    “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
    2 Corinthians 1:3-4

    Our brain has the capacity to store whatever information we receive, whether it is needful or not. But as time goes on, the brain empties its short-term memory. Also, if what’s stored in the long-term memory – be it your birthday 4 years ago or what you ate for breakfast 21 days ago – is not revised with time, the memory decays.

    Why? Because of emotional overload.

    Every thought, word, taste, smell, scene, touch etc has an emotion attached to it. For eg. You feel sad whenever you think about the death of a loved one. However, some events happen in our lives that are so traumatic that we hit an emotional overload for a long period of time. For eg. losing someone really close to you or seeing someone get shot. These events are traumatic that it’s been scientifically proven to cause neuroplasticity. Did you get it? The victim is so overloaded that it literally changes the structure of his/her brain.

    Do you know one thing? We are all headed for such an experience. Life does not even prepare us enough for it. No matter how much you are prepared for it, it is going to shake the very foundations of your will to survive. Keep this in mind when you see it happen to someone close to you. There’s an Akan proverb that says, “when you see a vulture on someone’s head, say get away from us, not get away from the person. For if the vulture leaves the person, it is coming to you.” The vulture is pain, grief, sorrow, trauma, hurt.

    If pain in this life is inevitable, why do we pretend to be okay? Why then do we act like nothing is wrong? Why? Hmm. Maybe, here’s why. Usually, people don’t know when the other person needs advice, encouragement, upliftment or comfort. It’s frustrating when you simply need comfort and someone is trying to advise you; when you’re pouring out your heart and the other keeps interrupting you with unsolicited advice. In such a situation, it’s difficult to say the right thing, but one thing will always be the right thing to do; listen.

    Listen before you speak. Sometimes the other doesn’t need you to say anything. Don’t make it about you. No one needs to hear what happened to you 5 years ago right now. Listen to the person, not to reply but to be empathic. Also, there’s this culture of belittling people’s experiences just because they are young and “inexperienced”. If a 3-year old is pouring out to you about how frustrating school is, what are you going to do? I guessed it. Downplay it. As if to say the child’s reaction to those experiences are invalid.

    If someone says they’ve lost their mother, it’s stupid to compare it to your experience of losing your dog. It’s insensitive to think that the person should get over it because it’s bound to happen. It’s absurd to think they are young and what they are going through now is “little” as compared to what you’ve been through. Everyone’s capacity is different; everyone’s reaction to the emotional load is different. Don’t belittle someone’s traumatic experiences. You are not the one to validate someone’s pain.

    You’ve probably written a lot of exam in your life and failed some. How are you going to react to a 13-year old failing exam for the first time? Alright. Okay, how about someone who brought hurt and guilt upon themselves because of their actions? Let’s talk about that category for a second.

    Having been called to comfort those who mourn, we have learnt to weep with those who weep and be happy with those who are happy. But how do we comfort other people without denying their reality to sell false hope, and also to avoid our own emotional overload? If you are that friend who always listens to other people pour their hearts out (and we all are that friend in one situation or another), how do you comfort without siding with the person’s mistakes he/she is not willing to admit with uncompromising Compassion?

    Jesus is the character in the Bible who is said to have compassion the most. He had compassion over the two blind men in Matt 20:34, the large crowd in Matt 14:14, the four thousand men in Matt 15:32, the five thousand men in Mark 6:34 and many many more. What I found is that Jesus didn’t tell them that there is hope, Jesus was their Hope. Any time Jesus had compassion on the sick, lame, blind, broken, crushed, sad, wretched, Jesus became a channel of healing for them.

    Don’t let them dump their burdens on you; help them lay down their burdens before the Father. Don’t promise them comfort, comfort them with the comfort God comforted you. Don’t just let them know that you’ll listen – so that the two of you will be wretched? NO! – let them know that when they come to you, they are not leaving with the burden they came with.

    Don’t be a helper in carrying burdens. Be a lifter of one’s head. Learn to comfort the broken without being broken. Don’t absorb their reality, impact yours.

    I love you ❤

  • Everyone Hurts

    There’s so much hurt in the world. There’s too much pain. Everyone hurts. Sometimes we may not have enough time to cry but we bleed anyways. Some don’t just go around exposing their vulnerability and be looking for sympathizers in their situation, though some others do.

    The mental trauma and instability is so alarming that being rude to anyone at all – even those we think we know so much – is stupendously uncalled for. Don’t be part of the problem. Be the light that shines in the darkness.

    People are going through so much. You are going through so much. Don’t isolate yourself into thinking you’re the only one. But guess what? One random act of kindness brings mutual healing. Hug somebody. Mind somebody. Love somebody. They need it, yes! But you need it too.

    I love you ❤️

  • The Hard Truth

    People only care about you only when they are gaining something from you. People will appreciate you a lot only when you are a beneficiary to them. They will like you as long as you are what they want you to be.

    And when you suddenly aren’t able to help them, YOU become the bad person. They try to make you the victim of their demise. They begin to despise you for your neglect.

    Familiarity. They have familiarized themselves with your ever-helping hand. They have grown accustomed to your never-relentless presence.

    Entitlement. They now feel entitled to your help. You are supposed to help them fix the mess they created for themselves.

    Expectations. They expect you to be there for them. They don’t even know what their intentions are. They don’t know that they are valuing things and using people.

    When you don’t do what they expected you to do, then they say you’ve changed. They expect you to defend them against others even if they are wrong. Why? Because we are friends? Then how different are we from those who have no values, lack integrity yet only do well in covering each other’s back.

    I’d rather be a man of pure integrity than a man of many friends.

    I don’t believe in the product as much as I believe in the process. I will always stand for the truth and believe the best about others. But if my circle begins to believe I’m not a good person, I’d rather be in the anomalies as long as they resonate a positive vibe I can thrive in. It’s better to live in the desert than to live with a nagging wife.