ALLOW GOD TO WORK!

God puts promises and dreams in our hearts. We know we are going to get well, we know our business is going to succeed, we know we are going to meet the right person, but God doesn’t tell us how or when it’s going to happen. Most of the time, we get frustrated when it’s not happening the way we thought! We must allow God to work for it to be fulfilled. The scripture says “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it? Numbers 23:19

As far as you have prayed, you believe, you have to leave how and when God gets it done… Putting a time frame on it, and a method of how it’s going to happen will get you frustrated. God is working when we can’t see it. Sometimes it’s taken longer because He has something better in store. One of the best things I have learned is to trust God’s timing and trust His ways. What God promised will come to pass but it may not happen the way you want it to happen and it may not be when you had planned. If you are trying to control the outcome and control the time frame, then you are going to live worried.

You can only say you are allowing God to work when you stop worrying about it, He is doing things that you can’t see. Favour is coming, healing and the right people have already been scheduled on your path. You can enjoy your life while you are waiting for things to change. What is upsetting you? What’s keeping you up at night? God is saying: “Allow me to work. I’m in control. I’m ordering your steps. I’m working behind the scenes. It may not look or sound good now but I’m going to turn it for your good“.

The scripture says, those who have believed enter into rest. (Hebrews 4:10) Once you believe, you don’t have to figure everything out. You may not see anything changing, you will be tempted to worry but stay at rest. When you are at rest you are showing God that you trust Him. Maybe you believe your health is improving, but the medical report is not getting better. You thought it would have happened by now. You could be worried, or complaining, but instead, you are thanking God, you are declaring His promises, and you are being your best each day.

When you are at rest you are in faith, that is what allows God to work. But if you are upset over what is not changing, worried about your finances, and can’t sleep because that child is a challenge to the family- that’s a sign that you stop believing. You need to enter into rest. Come back to a place of peace. You can’t trust God and be worried at the same time. When you are at rest, you know God is in control, you know He is fighting your battles, you know what He started He is going to finish. In my case, I don’t get a solution to anything when I am worried about it. Until I stop worrying about it, and in most cases, until I don’t even think about it anymore that’s when I can have access to the solution or see the promise come to pass.

This reminds me of my days in the Roman Catholic church, as a teenage boy, I was so passionate about becoming a Reverend father. I went for the forms, filled them and told my dad about my intention. My dad did not say a word at that moment but when it was nightfall, at about 2 am, my dad woke me up, he asked me to follow him to the living room and asked me to sit down. He asks me in our dialect, “What has come over you… Do you know what you are doing? And he said if I was a Reverend father would you and your siblings been born? I don’t want to ever hear anything of such in my house” He said a lot more and angrily left me there to his bedroom.

I was so disappointed with what my dad said. I try to fight it on different occasions. I got worried, living angrily, I was no longer a happy boy, I always changed my mood whenever my dad was around, and even refused to eat on many occasions. I even told some elderly people in my church who came to beg my dad to allow me. They told him that he should rather be very happy that his son wants to be a Reverend father (a minister of the gospel) but my dad was not ready to take any of that. 

Not long after that incident, my dad was transferred from that city. When we arrived at our new location, I quickly searched for a Roman Catholic Church nearby but I had nobody this time around to convince my dad anymore. So I decided within me if it would be, it would be and I stopped being an angry person just to convince my dad! I stopped worrying about it and also stopped changing my mood whenever my dad was around. I can say at that point, I took a giant step of allowing God to work!

Not long after I started going to the new Catholic church branch and also stopped worrying about it, I received an invitation from my mum’s cousin to an Assemblies of God church in that area. From that invitation I became a member, I saw it as a way to forget my dream of becoming a minister of the gospel or a Catholic Priest. Even though deep down within me that is what I ever wanted!

In the Assemblies of God church, I developed a new dream of becoming a marine engineer or a lawyer. I later settled on becoming a law lecturer; that’s to practice law and also lecture at the law school. When I was moving from my parent’s house to the university campus, there was no intention of becoming a minister of the gospel in the future even though I still had a deep hunger within me to be a minister of the gospel. All I could see was becoming a law lecturer! To cut a long story short, not long after a long encounter with the Lord in my 3rd year at the university, where I felt as if there was something God needed from me that I was still withholding from Him, I became a minister of the gospel. 

I was elected to the office of the head pastor in one of the largest congregations on campus. That is how my being a minister of the gospel resurrected even though not a catholic priest… Still a minister of the gospel. This time I didn’t have to fight for it or worry about it. Sometimes we want something so badly, that we get worried, and tell God how and when He should get it done. God was the one who put the dream or promise in our hearts and He will bring it to pass in His own time and according to the way He deem fit. It makes no sense to worry about what we never initiated in the first place or worry about what only God can do!

Don’t give up on the promise, dream, favour, healing or promotion but allow God to work… How do we allow God to work? Quit worrying about it, quit losing sleep, quit trying to make it happen your way, and say God, I trust you. I know you are in control of this situation. It can move me forward, backwards, left, right, but one thing I’m certain of is that where it finally lands me is exactly where you want me to be and how you want it to be.

God may not work the traditional way, what you were expecting or what you are used to. I have seen that anything you need to be happy, the enemy can use that against you. But when you can say, “God, this is what I want, but even if it doesn’t work out the way I wanted, I’m still going to be happy, I’m still going to give you praise”, that takes away the power of the enemy. You can hold tightly to your dreams, or promises but hold loosely to how and when God is going to accomplish it.

THE SET TIME!

The scripture says “You will arise and have mercy on Zion; For the time to favour her, yes, the set time, has come.” (Psalm 102:13) There is God’s set time to heal you, and His set time to turn the challenges around. If there is a right time that means there is also a wrong time. If it hasn’t happened yet, that means it wasn’t meant to happen now… Instead of fighting where you are, why don’t you embrace where you are? “God, I know you are ordering my steps, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. So, Lord, I want to thank you that my set times are coming”. I can promise you, God is not going to be one second late. He is not going to accidentally miss your set time.

It’s good to be passionate about our dreams, and passionate about seeing healing, freedom, and promotion but don’t be so consumed that you are not going to be happy while you are waiting for God to bring it to pass. Don’t put your happiness on hold until everything works out. This day is a gift: enjoy your life while God is working and enter into rest. Don’t worry, stressed out, and saying “When is it going to change”? You have to pass the test of being happy where you are, before God will get you to where you want to be.

Imagine if Joseph had not learned how to allow God to work. He received a dream from God as a teenager that he would be in leadership and people would bow down before him. What if he had a preconceived idea of how it was going to happen? “Surely if someone is going to come by my house, as they did for David, anoint me as king, pick me out of a lineup, show me favour, I will step into leadership”. But God does things in unusual ways. He can also use adversities, challenges, and disappointments to move us to where He wants us to be.

We think God only uses favour and opens doors. We thank God when that happens, we know it’s His blessing, but I have learned that God uses closed doors just as much as open doors. He uses people that are against us just as much as people that are for us. He uses rejection, betrayal, and waiting, to position us for promotion. We can’t see it at the time. We don’t like it, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s the hand of God ordering our steps. Joseph had this dream. He knew God’s favour was on him, but what happened? He was betrayed by his brothers, thrown into a pit, he was sold into slavery, worked in a foreign country, falsely accused, and put in prison – one challenge after another.

If he had tried to control it, tried to make it happen his way, he would have lived bitter, and frustrated. Every day he had to surrender the worry, the frustration, surrender how he thought it would happen and allow God to do it His way. 13 years later he became the prime minister of Egypt, and he saw that dream come to pass. But when you study his journey you see twists and turns, delays, opposition and disappointments.

The scripture says A man’s steps are of the Lord; How then can a man understand his own way? (Proverbs 20:24) Are you frustrated because you don’t understand something that happened to you? Are you upset over challenges, or worried because of a delay? How do you know it’s not the hand of God leading you to your throne? How do you know you are not a Joseph, that you are not right on schedule to see what God promised? It may not happen like you think, but God uses difficulties to position us for our destiny. What you are upset about is a necessary step. That closed door, the delay, challenges are instrumental in you reaching your purpose.

You can’t become who you were created to be without Saul being jealous, like with David. Without Potiphar’s wife falsely accusing you like with Joseph. Without a king Nebuchadnezzar throwing you into a fiery furnace, like the Hebrew teenagers. Without a Pharaoh trying to hold you captive, like the Israelites. The good news is that the opposition is not in control, they are in the hands of the Most High God. He is ordering your steps, nothing happens without his permission.

The scripture says “Cast your burdens on the Lord, and he will sustain you”.( Psalm 55:22) How many weights or burdens are you carrying around? There is something you have to do; you have to surrender the worry, surrender the frustration, surrender having to figure it out and allow God to work. Come back to a place of peace. The right attitude is “God, my life is in your hands. I commit my dreams, my family, my finances, and my health to you. And I’m not going to fight everything I don’t like. I’m not going to live upset when it doesn’t go my way. I know you are working all things together for my good. God, I trust your timing and I trust your ways”.

When you believe, you enter into rest. I’m asking you to stop resisting and start resting. If you will allow God to work, I decree and declare that whatever weight that is weighing you down is lifting off from you right now. God is shifting the winds of that storm. Instead of blowing you backwards, it’s going to blow you forward. Promotion is coming, healing is coming, freedom, breakthroughs, favour, the fullness of your destiny, in Jesus’ name.

The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”’