Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours without measure from God our Father and Jesus Christ. It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the second month of this year, the month of February 2025. My prayer is that God, by His Spirit in you, will cause you to humble yourself before Him, so that He can lead you to experience the fullness of His favour and goodness all through the month, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As we begin this month, I want to admonish you with these words from one of David’s psalms:
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.” (Ps 32:8-9NIV)
Who is speaking here? God! Who is He speaking to? Me! You! All of us! And what is He saying to us? First, He is telling us that He is ready to instruct and teach us in the way we should go in life. That means it is not every way that we take in life that will result in peace of mind and prosperity for us. There is a particular way for us to take to have these things. And the only one that knows this way and can lead us through it is God, our maker.
The second thing God says is that He will counsel us and watch over us. That means He is ready to see to it that we are never confused in life and that we are never without protection. What, then, do we need to enjoy His teaching, guidance and protection every day of our lives? We just need to cooperate with Him. And are we going to cooperate with Him? Are you going to cooperate with God to lead you to enjoy His best for your life?
As we see in the bible text above, God warns us not to be stubborn like animals. Why? We are not animals. We are humans created in His image and after His likeness. So, we have understanding and can be taught and guided by Him. Animals have no understanding. And because they have no understanding, you cannot explain things to them or reason with them. So, you have to trick or force them to cooperate with you. Otherwise, you will not be able to get them to do what you want them to do for you.
In like manner, if we choose to act like animals in our relationship with God, then, He won’t be able to easily teach or guide us to experience peace and prosperity in our lives, as He will love to. It follows, then, that if He must accomplish any good thing in our lives, He will have to make us listen to Him the hard way. But He hardly does that. That is because there is no guarantee that we will listen to Him, even if He has to make us learn the hard way.
For example, I once spent some hours counselling someone about her marriage. Yet she went ahead and did the exact opposite of what I told her. Now she has been through two failed marriages. And even if she marries again today, there is no guarantee that the new marriage will not fail. That is because unless she starts listening to God, she will have to continue to learn the hard way.
I shared that with you to just let you know that God does not want us to learn anything in life the hard way. That is because we may not even live to tell the story. So, He wants to teach us, guide us and also protect us. But we must rid ourselves of all stubbornness and humble ourselves to learn from Him and to follow Him. And I pray that we all will be daily strengthened to do so. Amen.
Have a lovely February 2025.
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