HOLD ME O!!! HOLD ME O!!!

Sometimes we think God isn't watching with interest what we do, one day I saw him laughing through the eyes of a child and I wondered what must have tickled him so much.  Many of the things we do makes God ‘LOL’ on his throne…  God has a sense of humour, this much I know.

He showed me once again one morning after my quiet time.  He had given me an instruction which till today even as I write this article I am still fighting.  That morning, he reminded me again and I said to myself “I will not give in, Lord it’s too hard and I can’t do it”.

As I told myself this, the Lord said to me

“Do you know what you are doing?”

I could almost see the glee in his eyes as he said that to me.

“No” I replied

“Let me show you”. 

Then he proceeded to play a picture in my head.  I will attempt to explain the picture, but if you are what they call “Aje pako” and you went to a public school, or if you were born and bred here in Nigeria you should get the picture.  You remember those days when two people want to fight and then people gather.  How one or two of them will be telling his friends to hold him lest he kills the other person, and then keeps looking behind to ensure his friends hold him back from rushing to tear his opponent apart. 

“Hold me o! Hold me o! I go kill this man o! Hold me o!”

If his friends catch the drift, they would save him from shame and oblige him by holding him back, but if they don’t, he either stays back to continue boasting while stretching his hands backwards to emphasize the need to be held back or goes ahead and gets beaten to a pulp.

Now, I laughed so hard at that image because I knew He was right (sometimes we forget that the Lord can see our hearts and all our hidden motives). Yet, the fact that the Lord had used this picture made me laugh even more, i tell you, he notices everything even this simple act of cowardice.

He told me I know what he expects of me, yet I am moving in the wrong direction silently expecting him to hold me back by some miraculous intervention like Jonah and the whale or the glorious appearance he made to Paul.  At this point, I pictured myself on the wrong path stealing backward glances and daring the Lord to stop me if he really wanted me to follow his instruction. 

He went further to tell me that he wasn’t going to stop me anyway, and I should know that every man has a choice and he has given us freewill.  He will not trample on our freewill by forcing his plan on us.  He said I should remember that not everyone was graced to have been stopped in his or her tracks.  Moreover, those that were given that grace could have also chosen not to follow through, Jonah may have chosen to die in the belly of the fish and Paul could have chosen to ignore the vision and die blind, but they chose the right path.  He said even if he did stop me in my tracks, I could still wave it aside and continue on the wrong path, like Judas.

“So my child, why don’t you save yourself a lifetime of misery and follow my instructions, it is for your own good, not mine.”

I can tell you that I had a rethink after that, and what the Lord said was true, even as I fought his instruction, secretly in my heart, I wanted him to stop me in my tracks with some miraculous sign, just to prove that he was serious about the instruction.  How many of us are like that?  We know what the Lord expects of us, yet we dare him to stop us from going the other way and most times, we don’t get stopped and we just follow through with our own plan while telling ourselves that maybe it wasn’t the Lord’s instruction after all.

As I write this, I tell myself that following my own path is much easier than the Lord’s will for me, and I still struggle with the thought of it, but I hate to waste my life shouting “Hold me o! Hold me o!’”  I will rather follow through on his instruction and live a happy life and when I see my Lord face to face; he would hug me and say, “Well done child and thank you for not silently screaming … Hold me o! Hold me o!”