A Season of Application, Royalty and Community
What will I do different this year?
Hello friend,
I am typing this from the window seat on a train back to Lagos.
I really enjoy these trips. I learned that the train is quite slow compared to its potential but I do enjoy these two and half hours of tranquillity. When I don't meet someone new for a long conversation, it affords my eyes some rest or my mind the opportunity to meditate.
I remember one of my train trips back to Lagos last year. I was a mess. I cried those throaty painful tears most of the way because I was frustrated with a lot of things. I was planning to relocate to Ibadan but I couldn't make head or tail of anything. I was confused, and even worse, I was fighting the guilt of knowing I didn't trust God's word.
This time, I am enjoying a sweet serenity. My soul is at rest and unperturbed by uncertainty. Thank you, Jesus.
I know what the year holds and I'm confidently taking the fullness of each new day.
School resumes tomorrow as well. I am pretty excited about this. I'm grateful to those who sent in a contribution for my fees. Gosh! Thank you! There's still a long way to go but I am incredibly grateful for the first fruits. My heart is greatly warmed. I was also inspired and encouraged by a heartfelt email I got in response to my story so far. Thank you, writer. God’s goodness will be constantly evident in your life.
To make a donation, please do see my account details below.
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Temitope Damilola Oyewusi
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Temitope Damilola Oyewusi
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Narration (Tuition)
I'll be getting back to my BSSMO weekly updates by next Sunday. Today, I want to share some personal charges I ended the last year with and will be taking seriously in 2022.
Application of wisdom (Phronesis)
Every teaching I've been under in the last three weeks have a common theme of urgency in them. The words of prophecy as well. You'd hear words like speed, now, time. I have no doubt that it is God speaking as it confirms the things I have also been hearing and learning in my private time.
It has been a few years of unlearning and learning with Jesus. The time has been spent getting rooted into the soil of His presence and goodness. I dare say it is time for the shoot to spring up and grow. As the year unfolds, I look forward to sharing the interesting projects I’m working on, my evangelism chronicles, my progress with building covenant relationships, and other things in between.
I recently borrowed these three principles below from Alcoholics Anonymous, as shared by Michael Brody-Waite, a recovered alcohol addict. They succinctly articulate the key changes I have been practising.
"I will practice rigorous authenticity, surrender the outcome, and do the uncomfortable work."
I will be authentic with my strengths, weaknesses, time, and emotions. It's not the easiest and it may not look like what I imagine, but I will not numb myself. I will be loud without explanation and I will be silent without explanation. There is no mould I need to fit into.
I can't dictate the outcome but I can do what I need to do. Obedience isn't dependent on the great outcome I envisage but on trusting God.
I will do the uncomfortable work, even when it is awkward, difficult, boring, or scary.
You can check out Michael Brody-Waite’s TED Talk here. That link has the transcript too. Or you can just watch it on YouTube.
Royalty
I shared my learnings about Royalty a few episodes back. You can read about that here
and here
(Pssst - I did search for eligible royal bachelors and haven't found anyone within range. Cousins and nephews to the crown family were hard to find on the internet. Most of those I saw are too young to get past my beloved cliche of ‘age is just a number.’ Do let me know if any comes on your radar. Denmark is preferred. Thanks and God bless)
The ways of Royalty can be learned. But becoming a royal doesn't really have a blueprint. You're either a child of the royals or married into the family. The more I entertain myself with documentaries on Kingdoms and royalty, the more grateful I am to Jesus.
Through Him, I can hold claim to my royalty on both levels - as a bride that He married for Himself and as a child adopted by the Father through His sacrifice.
But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. Ephesians 5:25-27
Isn’t that amazing?
As I meditated on what all of this means for my behaviour and choices, it got clearer how important it is to enjoy being a bride loved by her bridegroom. I can enjoy His largesse and have oversight over areas that He assigns to me. As we grow closer, I will learn more about the things under the purview of the kingdom. Whatever sense of entitlement I may have had gives way for a sense of ownership and responsibility for our assets.
Isn’t it a wonderful thing to come into the Kingdom above all Kingdoms and be given the highly coveted title of ‘Son’ or ‘Daughter’? Literally, a co-owner and a co-protector of the Kingdom, fully commissioned to find the lost children?
This year, make it a point to learn about your royal status in the Kingdom. You know the first place I’ll ask you to do that. Your Bible. Read your Bible every day.
Check out this past episode for tips on studying.
Community
Teams. Networks. Communities.
We hear in part and prophesy in part. In the same way, each person lives their lives as a part of a bigger story. We cannot grow alone. This reminds me of the Banana song from Sesame Street.
One banana. Two banana.
One for me and one for you banana.
Three or four or even more banana.
One banana can't grow alone.
Don’t sweat it. Here’s the video below.
Paul talks extensively through the epistles of how we are all one body, working together to build one house for our Christ.
I can tell you that reading these scriptures out of the context of the entire Bible made me subconsciously fear confrontation and frictions in my relationships. I badly wanted everyone to just vibe and flow together - be one body.
Now, I have a better understanding that Paul did not mean that we had to be uniform in thinking or never have frictions. He meant that regardless of what tries to pull us apart, we can fix our eyes on Jesus, together. The closer we grow to Jesus, the closer we become as a body. We may bump on each other, but we’ll sit with Jesus to deal with it.
I believe that this season is one for teams. We need each other to grow and become who we have been created to be - Christ.
As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. - 1 Peter 2:4-5
…having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. - Ephesians 2:20-22
What practical things can we do to fall in love with the body of Christ and grow as a community?
I believe that the first is to pray for the body of Christ, especially your local community. This could be your traditional church or a body of believers who fellowship together. Pray for your brothers and sisters.
Pray and study with the body of Christ. This is where we break bread and eat the same meal, who is Christ. If you know anything about the middle-eastern culture, it is their tradition of eating together and praying together. Jesus did this often with those He taught when He was on earth. Don’t neglect the gathering of believers as the writer of Hebrews charged. We sharpen one another.
Practice rigorous authenticity, surrender the outcome and do the uncomfortable things. I’d also add, have the uncomfortable conversations. Ask the Holy Spirit for guidance and for the wisdom to do this. Trust me, I know how difficult this can be. But we are helped! Amen.
Practice generosity of time, talents, your gift, money, etc.
Engage in the corporate activities of the body and be alert to spot needs and proffer solutions.
Don’t bash your brother or sister. On a basic level, avoid gossip, deal with offence immediately and practice brave communication. On a larger scale, avoid bashing doctrines and trying to show that “some of them are wrong and some of us are right”. I have made it a point to click ‘ignore’ or ‘not interested’ on every recommended video on YouTube that suggests “Why pastor so and so, or ministry so and so is evil”. No doubt, there are wolves in sheep clothing and we should not encourage them or turn a blind eye. But I’d rather focus on learning and sharing the truth - Jesus - than spend energy trying to debunk a lie. If you want to silence a lie, step up with the undiluted and irrefutable truth.
Show and share Jesus with your neighbor, with your colleagues, with the world!
Read the book of Ephesians. That’s a good start.
What other ways do you stay connected with your community of believers? Please do share in the comments or via email.
Finally, for believers who believe in the prophetic and have received prophetic words over the years, I would encourage you to go back to them. Study them closely and extract important things like words that confirm your identity, your responsibility within the prophetic word, and timelines, if there are any. I will share about prophetic processing soon. But you can also search online for this. Dan McCollam has a book on this that I’m yet to read. But I have taken one of his short classes on the topic. The book is called - The Good Fight. You can get it at the Bethel bookstore, Amazon and other bookstores.
God bless you and have a marvellous week
Love and love,
OTDamilola
For King and Kingdom