DON’T BE A SPIRITUAL NOMAD!
At a season in my journey, I was unsure whether I was growing or just floating spiritually. I was getting carried away with the excitement of trending names and teachers. Yes! I was learning, but I knew there was a longing that I had was not yet met. I kept wondering what was wrong.
Until one day when it struck me hard- I needed to take the teaching of my spiritual father seriously. I became intentional. I began to listen to every service. Something was fired up again in my spirit man. It was also easier to draw closer to my spiritual parents. My heart was at home. Home became sweeter. Truthfully, everything went to a new level for us- our marriage got better, ministry impact multiplied, and personal spiritual growth became obvious.
Like the prodigal son, many people have “anything but made at home” appetites. They long to be fed whatever is available. They eat anywhere and anything, yet they sense an emptiness within.
Listen! Some people are addicted to the latest. If it is trending, they must get on it. You are confused because you do not know the difference that the prodigal son eventually discovered: No matter how far you travel and how adventurous you get, there is something called “my father’s bread.”
Let me explain: We were in a meeting where a baby cried for food. The mother picked him up and breastfed him. I asked another nursing mother there, “Do you have what it takes to feed that baby?”. She said, “Yes”. Then I asked, “But will you feed him if you were the one carrying him and he cried for milk.” She laughed and said, “No, I will give him to his mother.” I smiled and said, “You are a mother, but you are not his mother.”
Beloved, there is a difference between “a pastor” and “my pastor”. There is a difference between “a father” and “my father”. There is something that food at home does to your spirit. Unfortunately, the only teaching lacking on your phone is that of your pastor, who teaches you every Sunday. You are tired, and you now crave food from ‘another’ mother. Wake up your senses!
Listen, beloved: Begin to take the teachings of your pastor seriously. Your home is a mess because your wife has a favourite preacher, and you have another favourite preacher, but when you have issues, you want your pastor to counsel you. There is no space for his words in your home. It carries no weight when there is no crisis. How will it automatically carry weight now?
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and you.
Luke 15:17-18 NIV
Get back to your senses. Listen well to your pastor. Wait! Do you even have a pastor? Set out and go back home.
No matter how much jollof rice you eat at a wedding party, it can never replace food at home. Wake up! Kill that long throat. Feed well at home. Thank God for jollof, but eat well at home. Have you been to a wedding where you did not eat from home, and then food did not get to you? Next time, what do you do? You eat from home.
© temilOluwa Ola, Eruwa.