I have been preaching to almost everyone I meet and have had encouraging responses. But today, fear raised its head again after a while. I listened to it for a bit until I caught myself and quickly yielded to the Holy Spirit. I did so by praying in the Spirit for some time to be re-energized because I felt weak. The fear of preaching to a man I presumed would be unresponsive gave way under the power of obedience. Fear gave me several reasons not to preach but as I prayed, I received strength to open my mouth and say, “Hello sir, may I speak with you?” “Oh yes, you can”, he said.
And in, I jumped. Has anyone else realized that when you start, your mouth keeps running? I think a hurdle is the hard start. I shared God’s mind for Christians now and asked the man for his response. He asked me if I was through to which I said, “Yes”. He told me he wasn’t through listening to me, that I should keep talking. So I went on to speak and guess we spoke for over two hours before the bus came to a stop. I recall that before I boarded the bus, I prayed for the person who would sit by me and when he came in, I reasoned that I’ll have 5 hours (Ibadan to Benin) to share with him. So when I debated with fear earlier on and said that I would not waste the 5 hours, fear said to me that I would still have time to strike up a conversation in the course of the journey. This made me settle for a while until the Holy Spirit reminded me again and again to be “instant in season and out of season”.
I am really grateful to Him for not letting me disobey because I have noticed that one act of disobedience leads to another and after a while, I don’t get to preach to anyone. I’m grateful that the man who I feared to be unresponsive was so attentive that it took a break in transit for me to stop talking. He even asked me to do a recap of repentance from dead works after I finished. I’m grateful for the money he gave me to buy bananas when I simply voiced out the high cost of purchase. (I tried to reject it though but it was forced into my hand with the words, “You don’t know how much you’ve blessed me.”)
I’m grateful for the joy of doing God’s will. Life in Him is beautiful and He is too good.
Till the whole world knows…
