BE CAUTIOUS OF EXCITEMENT THAT RESULTS IN FORGETFULNESS

Just as the cry of my first baby hit the room, my heart took a deep breath of relief. The labour had lasted hours and birth procedures had taken its own extra time. Irewamiri had really tried.

Minutes later, they brought out my daughter and I was super excited to see her for the first time. But I looked at the caregiver and said, “Thank God. Please, take her to the room. I will wait for my wife”. I was excited but I would never forget the channel God used to give us the gift that I cherish so much.

Let me give a simple suggestion first: A lot of attention is given to the new child after delivery. People buy gifts for the child. The first place they run to on a visit is to see the child. Please, take a pause and see the mother first. She is the channel. Buy gifts for the mother too. Be sensitive and do not talk carelessly. She deserves the love and attention also.

Excitement can lead to forgetfulness. Folks get excited and they are so focused on the gift that they ignore the giver. People focus so much on God before gifts arrive but seem to be focused on the gift afterwards.

Men would pray for a job and the Lord would answer. Days afterwards, the job has become the excuse why they find it hard to pray or fellowship with God.

People wait on the Lord for a child and some years down the line, stewardship and service drop to a low and the words that they speak are “It is these children. They take too much of my time.”

Some wait on the Lord for marriage but suddenly their focus is now on their spouse and how to make things work. They forget the Lord.

The painful one would be believers who in excitement would lose all forms of consecration on their wedding day. They fasted and prayed before the wedding but they break their fast with strange songs, lewd lyrics and indecent exposure simply because they are excited.

The devil is a master of his craft- he is always waiting for an opportune time to strike. A moment of looseness is all he needs to fire his fiery darts from hell.

Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. Luke 4:13 NKJV

The devil can pretend to be an answer to prayers. It is not enough to get answers. You need to know the spirit that is sponsoring the answer.

The girl with the spirit of divination would have looked like an evangelistic breakthrough but Paul was unsettled. They later realised that the devil was trying to sponsor a divine agenda so he could hijack it. Eventually, the first members of that church were not those who sang their praises at first but those who supervised their beating- the jailer and his family.

Before you get excited about answers, ask yourself:

• Who is sponsoring this answer?
• Am I forgetting God?
• Has the gift become my god?

It takes wisdom

temilOluwa Ola, Eruwa.