In 2023, as Nigeria prepared to elect a new president, a lot of individuals came forward with prophesies and predictions that were bold in words and drama but not from the Lord by any means.
Any word from God concerning a nation is never spoken a day or a month before the event. A nation is like a train; its effectiveness depends heavily on the track you have laid before it departs its location.
It cannot improvise in case of a flood or in case anything happens to its tracks. It has been set on a course it must follow.
Therefore, the course a nation would follow is always set many months in advance of its journey.
For the USA, the prophecy that announced that Donald Trump would reign for two times with a gap of four years between was given by Prophet Kim Clement in 2007, ten years before he became the president of the United States for the first time.
Prophecies according to permutations and pulse reading are nothing but guesswork.
Everybody started shouting a particular name overnight, like covid and prophets started shivering and convulsing, so that the voice of those people must be the voice of God.
Some said, "If the election were free and fair," their candidate would win the election.
Imagine that!
Imagine a prophecy so powerless that it has to depend on people voting a certain way for the Word of God to come to pass...
When God speaks concerning a nation, he does not take into consideration the participatory ability or reasoning power of the people.
God does not go to people in a dream or vision to campaign or convince them that they must vote for a certain person.
God decides, and people just end up playing their pre-allotted roles that will lead to the fulfillment of the word of God.
Students of prophecy should note this: the sight has shifted to the person who will lead Nigeria after 2031.
If you hear anybody prophesying or beating the drums of attention regarding the current season we are in, let the person know that, just as good movies are shot years before people gather in cinemas to watch them, so is the destiny of nations predetermined in the place of prophecy long before the campaigns and electioneering season opens.
King Saul was anointed in Zuph, far away from his family members, the crowd, and his servants.
King David was anointed in Judah, in his father's house, thirteen years before he ascended the throne.
The destiny of nations is prewritten, and the leaders who are chosen to lead nations are pre-chosen and trained for this purpose deliberately.
Seers and prophets must stand at their watch and see as God sees at this time, or they should stop parading themselves as mouthpieces of divinity.
I remember one man who was so bold as to declare the current president of Nigeria would "die" before he gets sworn in, if he should be elected to lead the nation.
The same man later hid behind, we prayed for "mercy" for him, and God heard us.
Such prophecies will soon start flying all over the place from many who claim to speak for God but only seek momentary attention and relevance.
Of course, they will get it from those who desire whatever such a prophet is selling as the truth and those who wouldn't dare speak for themselves but believe that amplifying the voice of the prophet is as good as amplifying their own desires.
Believers who are well-schooled in the chronemics and proxemics of prophecy will recall that the birth of Jesus was foretold and was the birth of John the Baptist several years before the events came to pass.
It is not every individual's birth that was foretold that way
If a man or woman were to have any significant role to play according to the plan of God, he or she might find himself or herself in the book of "what would come" long before he or she was born.
Another person, like David, could just be chosen by God as someone who fitted into God's plan in the right season, and even then, it is not immediate.
Awareness always comes before preparation, and preparation comes before fulfilment.
Watchers should look to the East.
Set your watch on the shoulders of administration and effectiveness. Outsiders will not find themselves in any form of contention outside of noise.
Set your sights within.
See from the inside
Ignore the noise from the outside
You are looking for a student of governance who is governing. He or she is skilled in consolidation,
adaptation and commitment to improvement on set goals.
Set your sights in the right direction, and you will see.
PS: I write as a teacher.
I aim to help those who desire to see so that they can become effective in the place of prophecy, especially prophets to the nations.
Many are full of the Holy Spirit, and they desire to prophesy accurately, but they always aim the scope of their lenses at the wrong time while seeking the right prophecy
Timing (chronemics) is key in understanding and unravelling the prophetic
Distance (proxemics) is also important.
If you want to see as a prophet, you must set your sight with the two in mind and not be moved by the immediate.
Thank you
-GSW-
https://t.co/ZQcrOVm8eo
This is my love:
gentle enough to kneel,
strong enough to stay,
and brave enough to be poured out completely for you.
This is my love.
Poured out like fragrant oil upon your feet—
worthy, intentional, without restraint.
This is my love.
Emptied from the hidden chambers of my heart,
like water carried in trembling hands,
spilled freely for you—
no measure kept back, no drop withheld.
This is my love.
unwavering.
Captured in the quiet chords of friendship,
rising like a sacred melody—
soft, steady, resounding
It is not hurried.
It is not forced.
It is chosen—again and again.
Stay The Course
As a minister of the gospel, it is always encouraging to see people surrounding you and standing by you when you wake up every day
One of the worst things a minister of the gospel can experience is to be deserted or forsaken by those the Lord has called him to lead
I have seen many men of God fall into depression, and some even died, when the ministry God gave unto them collapsed, and those whom the Lord has called them to lead deserted them for one reason or another
Jesus experienced this after feeding the five thousand; John the Baptist experienced this after Jesus started his ministry.
John took it in good faith because his ministry dwindled for the right reason.
Jesus asked the disciples if they would also not leave after the crowd left, to which Peter replied, "Where shall we go, you have the word of life."
The same word was why those who left Jesus did so. They said his teachings were too hard.
One of the reasons people leave is because someone like Judas, who has been with a minister and tried hard to push himself into a place of prominence or visibility, would suddenly take offence and start besmirching the reputation of the minister and his ministry.
People usually depend on the recommendation of others (word of mouth) in order to buy a product, trust a service provider, or stay in a ministry.
When those who are supposed to be close to the minister begin to say bad things about the minister, it shakes the faith of many, and without giving the minister the benefit of the doubt, he or she will see some people departing.
There is no successful minister of the gospel in the world who has not experienced this in one form or another.
What you must learn is this: in order to be healthy as a tree of life, you must be pruned constantly.
Pruning is the selective removal of a plant's parts (branches, buds, roots) to improve its health, shape, safety, and productivity. It is done by cutting away dead, diseased, damaged, or unwanted material to encourage vigorous growth, better structure, and more blooms or fruit.
If your ministry is not pruned constantly, it will have too many unproductive branches drawing from the resources of the tree, and this will affect the growth of all the other branches and the productivity of the ministry as a whole.
You should look forward to being pruned, especially if you are preaching and teaching the gospel of grace and not the gospel of self or popularity.
Jesus didn't preach in order to keep the crowd; he preached in order to transform lives. (He chose quality over quantity)
Many ministers would rather have quantity, many people, or a crowd in their ministries to prove to the world that they are successful.
All over the world, the number of followers you have is an indication of how successful or influential you are in life.
This shouldn't be so, but sadly it is.
It is, however, better to have members who know the word of God for themselves and are growing in grace than members who are in your ministry because they like you, admire you, or want you to elevate them or endorse them or marry you, or see you as their meal ticket.
If you raise members who are fed with the Word of life, the best character assassination campaign will not shake you.
If you raise members who surround you because you are handsome or speak good English or have money, etc., you are sitting on a keg of gunpowder on a raging sea.
Remember that those who left Jesus ate bread and then decided to make him King.
As long as you gather those whose agenda for being with you is for their own welfare, you truly do not have anyone.
They will leave when you refuse to give them free bread.
Beware of those who, out of nowhere, force themselves into positions of prominence around you.
Those who understand the theory of Prominence by Association.
They want to be seen as your right-hand man or woman, and they buy their way or force their way into that space overnight.
They will be your Brutus one day, with a sharpened knife, they will stab you in the back, and tell those around you that you deserve it.
Those who have fed on the word of life will not be moved by their wickedness, but the superficial ones will follow such a person out of the door
Keep away from people's money.
One of the worst things to ever depend on as a minister of the gospel is the purse of your followers. You have a duty to fill their purses, not to deplete them.
If you depend on their purses, the richest ones become an easy target for those who desire to destroy you.
You must choose those who will be in your inner circle. Do not allow anyone to choose himself or volunteer or buy his or her way in, or tell you, "God told him to serve in your ministry or in your council."
If you are single, it is best to get married for your own safety. Being single as a minister, especially if you become quite prominent, will make all sorts of ladies who are looking to get married flock to your ministry with the hope of marrying you. Many of them will begin to see visions, hear from the lord, receive prophecies, and dream dreams simply because they see the void and desire to fill it.
"Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned."
Live your life to please the Lord.
Do not cave in to the demands of any man or woman who says, "This is how it is done, or this is the tradition we know." Follow the Holy Spirit's guidance alone.
Stick to your Audience of One.
Finally, Jesus said it is normal for people to drag you on Social media, revile you, persecute you, disdain you, insult you, mock you, and say all manner of evil things about you as long as it is for the sake of the gospel.
This is nothing new, so grow some thick skin and welcome to the party.
We are not in this to be popular; we are in this to change the world.
-GSW-
A Strange Encounter
I was checking into a hotel somewhere in Lagos in January 2023 at about 2 pm.
I use this hotel a lot whenever I am in Nigeria, and all the staff know me by name
As they were processing my bags through their scanning machine, I stood with one of their concierges, and we had some small talk
He asked how I was and also asked how my wife and children, who often stayed with me at the hotel, were
I replied to him that they were all fine
Suddenly, a man was standing by my right side, it was as if he appeared from nowhere, he touched my elbow and said, "Good afternoon, Brother Gbenga."
I looked at him and was a bit startled, but I recovered quickly.
I greeted the man.
He was wearing a navy blue T-shirt, a combat trousers, and a pair of trainers
He asked if he could see me for a minute
I was tempted to ask him to wait until i had checked in properly before giving him audience but I didn't want to offend him, so I excused myself from the concierge and walked with him to the seats at the reception.
As soon as I sat down, the man said, I was asked to come to this hotel and wait for you by the Lord Jesus Christ.
He gave me a message for you
He said you are about to get into one of the stormiest seasons of your life, but you should not fret because every experience he has taken you through before now was deliberately curated to build you up so that you can go through this storm without many scars.
I saw you swimming, you were making steady progress, and once every other minute, you would lift up your head to take in some air before diving right back into the pool. This was how the Lord says the issues shall be spaced.
He said you should "Be strong and trust Him much more than you have ever done before in your life."
I said, "Thank you, sir."
He said, "Starting from the month of March this year, you will begin to experience some drastic changes.
They could have all happened at once, but when I was praying, I intervened and asked the Lord to space them out because it felt to me like too much, too soon.
He said, "The foundations of trust around you will be shaken, and some will crack. Some will find their way back, and some will never look back once they part ways with you. Take this as part of the grand design for the new beginnings ahead of you."
He said, "The Lord said to tell you that you will outgrow your clothes quickly, and you will have to sew another one that is much bigger to accommodate your excess weight.
Do not fret when it is time to do this; rather, rejoice, for the Lord has predetermined in his heart to enlarge your coast and make you great. Where you are now, your eyes cannot see much because it is in another man's vision.
For you, it is as far as your eyes can see, so the Lord will take you to the place where you can have unobscured lines of sight and possess without any hindrance."
I nodded
Then he said, "You will court scandal, but I will shield you from them all, says the Lord, I will protect your inheritance and subvert the intentions of those who might want to act venomously against you. I saw many snakes spewing their venom at you, but it was as if you were wearing a hamza suit; the venom could not touch you. The Lord really loves you."
At this point, I felt a deep stirring within me.
The man was speaking to me with his eyes closed, as if he were reliving the visions he saw and the words he heard from the Lord.
I started feeling the warmth of the Holy Spirit bubbling from within my spirit, and at the same time, I felt this warm embrace all over my shoulder and my head as if I was being hugged from behind and from the front simultaneously.
I naturally do not accept prophecy from anyone outside of my fellowship as a rule, because the Bible said there are so many strange spirits that have gone forth into the world.
This was not just some random prophet, i was very much convinced he was an angel of the Lord at this point.
The man then said, "You have been praying for one of your brothers who is battling for his accommodation abroad. His wife reached out to you for prayers and support. Tell her that I have taken care of it and brought back the days of dancing and rejoicing.
He gave some other prophecies pertaining to those very close to me and shared with me intimate details that no one else could have known.
I listened with my spirit
Then he said, "By the Year of Jubilee of your ministry, the Lord said the storm would have been completely taken care of, and you would have come out of it unscathed.
The secret is to go through this trying season with thanksgiving and a heart full of joy, so that the days will not be prolonged. The more joyful you are, the weaker the strength of the storm shall be."
The Lord said you must trust in Him with all your heart.
He said you must be deliberate with your trust and you must be deliberate in the decisions you make, especially regarding leaning on the Lord for guidance and leaning on people or your own understanding.
The Lord said you believe you are very smart, but you should put your smartness aside and follow him like a sheep through this season.
The Lord says to assure you of His love!
Then the man stood up and made to leave
I followed him and asked him for his name and phone number
He smiled and said, "If the Lord wanted you to have it, He would reveal it to you the same way he revealed yours to me."
And he left.
I checked into my room with a heart full of information and revelation.
One thing I was sure of at the time was that this man was an angel.
The things he said to me began to happen in the month of March 2023
Like he said, it was as if it were deliberately timed and spaced out so that I was able to cope and adjust with every development as they came.
I give glory to God for every victory won on every side
He has the victory.
The prophecy about me gaining excess weight has also come to pass, but it was not physical weight.
I outgrew my current accommodation, and I had to move
I am moving with songs of praise and gratitude in my mouth
Rehoboth was my first house, and it held a lot of sentimental value and feelings deep in my heart.
It was a miracle house that God built for me right in the middle of Covid, and since I moved there, I have prospered beyond my wildest dreams as a minister of the gospel.
I got a message from the authorities who owned the land I built the house on to vacate the building before seventy-two hours at 3 pm on Friday.
They gave me the land to build on when I was a pastor in the denomination, and I had since then left the denomination in the pursuit of my destiny in Christ.
I am grateful to the denomination and the Lord for keeping me in this location through the most beautiful season of my life so far.
The storm came, and it was ferocious, but I landed in a wealthy place.
God is faithful unto me on every side.
I bless His Holy name.
Now, the man who gave me that message turned out not to be an angel after all.
He was a servant of God, like I am.
I got a call from a man in 2024.
The man needed my urgent intervention in a matter, and I told the man I would pray about it and get back to him.
As soon as I got off the call from the man, my phone buzzed, and it was a WhatsApp message
This man, the one who gave me the prophecy in 2023, was the one who sent me the message
He greeted me and wrote, "Tell the man who just reached out to you that the Lord said the matter before the tribunal has been sorted and he has the victory".
I checked Truecaller and discovered his identity.
I bless the Lord for sending help ahead of me to prepare me for the seasons ahead of my life.
The Lord be praised forever. Amen.
PS: The GSWMI prophetic service is every Wednesday, and we do it online. You can join from anywhere in the world at your convenience.
I am inviting you to be a part of it
How prophecy has guided and shaped my life, I cannot explain in full, but it is evident to all that without it, I would not be awake this morning, writing one of the most beautiful thanksgiving letters to the Lord as I am doing now.
It is time to complete phase one of His City of refuge!
Glory be to God
God said What?
Some years ago, i met a lady
We became friends to the point that I started thinking of getting married to her
Then I went with her to meet her parents
Her mother started talking about her character
"She is a good girl, focused, well-raised, praised in her company where she started working at the age of 18...
It was all glorious until her mother said, "Once in a while, she gets into her melancholic state and may want to be by herself for some time.
Just like me, I sometimes get this depression, but it is a fleeting thing; it passes
All you need to do is leave her be at that time and let her find her way back to the light
You know, it is murky water, what we call the mind, and sometimes one finds himself or herself in a very dark place.
So if you notice she drew the curtains, shut out the light, and locked herself in, don't panic
She is going through a process
Once she comes out of it or shakes it off, she will be fully back to herself."
I listened to her with a smile on my face
I was nodding as she was speaking
She did not know I was a child of elders
She was packaging mental illness for me to spend my future with
Hereditary, one at that
After that meeting, I stylishly went cold on the relationship until she moved on
A year later, an old schoolmate of mine reached out to me
He said he met a babe, he was dating her, and she told him she had a friend who also attended Bowen University
He wanted to know if the babe was a good girl and worthy of buying a ring for
I asked him if he had met her mother
He said he had not
I said, "When you meet her mother, she will give you a caveat; it will be subtle, but she will give it because she is anticipating some developments in the future, and she would like to be able to say you had full disclosure.
Listen to that caveat and make your decision only after that.
A few months later, I got a wedding invitation from the two of them
They were getting married.
Awesome.
A few months after they got married, she suddenly went berserk and hit him on the head with a pestle
How he didn't die was by divine intervention.
When he was at the hospital after this event, I went to check up on him
He said, "She would sometimes be staring into space absentmindedly, and he dare not disturb her reverie at such a time.
He said she would sometimes lock herself in the room, in pitch darkness during the day, and he dared not disturb her at such a time.
He said she would often get into unprovoked fights at work, but they all knew she was not okay, so they usually let it be.
He said she would sometimes get provoked over a small issue, and she would destroy things, throw things, and go violent
He showed me marks on his chest where she had clawed him with her fixed nails and drawn blood.
He said all the neighbours were scared of her; she believed they were witches, wizards, monitoring spirits looking at her and monitoring her life, and picked a fight with all of them at random
She forbade him from opening the windows or parting the curtains of the house because of all the imaginary enemies that were after them.
I said, "Did I not tell you not to marry this lady without doing your due diligence?
Did I not tell you to pay attention to her mother's caveat when you meet her?
He said, "I had prayed and God said she was the one"
I am laughing as I type this
You allowed "God said" to convince you to marry a mentally unstable person despite seeing all the signs that her mantal illness is hereditary?
Did you consider your children? That they might develop the problem later because you lied to yourself that God told you she is the one?
They eventually parted ways a few months after he was discharged from the hospital when she poured hot water on him right from the gas cooker.
His saving grace was that his mother had poured out the boiling water to use to bathe the baby and had just poured another set of cold water in the pot.
She did it out of anger, right in the presence of his mother.
At that point, her mother stylishly carried the baby away, and he also left home for her
The lady is on Instagram daily ranting about men being toxic and how her husband abandoned her etc.
See, when it is your turn to get married, don't do your due diligence
Turn God to INTERPOL and Private Investigator, ignore all the red flags and the signs of looming tragedy. Hide behind Psalm 23 and Psalm 91
Marry a mad person because he or she carries Bible, is in a department in church and does not dress seductively.
Or marry the one that has diplayed unhealthy hatred for all men on her social media for the world to see long before you met her
Or marry the one dancing naked in the name of content creation and my body my madness ideology.
In the Bible, the elders at the city gate were the ones who handled marital affairs
You never see a prophet in the Bible asking God who should marry whom or telling anybody to marry somebody because God said so.
The reason the elders handled marital issues is that they are custodians of history and tradition. They know every family, and they investigate every family.
They are the ones who determine if a bride or groom is suitable for each other.
All the "God told me or God showed me" deceit going on in the name of being born again and able to hear from the Holy Spirit cannot be substantiated from the Bible.
When you want to get married, do your investigations. Ask questions. Do the men in this family work? Do their parents allow them to leave the family house, or do they marry into the family house? How do they treat their in-laws? What is their temper like? In what condition did they raise the child you want to get married to?
Don't play russian roulette with your life by marrying based on luck or on "God told me".
Remember that the doctrine of your church will most likely forbid divorce.
Even if you can get a divorce, remember that she or he might have children with you, and bad genes can be passed on.
Don't ruin your future because of sentiments and feelings.
I know people with bad genes deserved to be loved, too. It is not their fault that they are how they are, and one should not stigmatize them
You, however, don't have to be the one to serve as a sacrificial lamb in the name of "God said".
PS: If you have ever dated or been married to a mentally unstable person before, you will know that "God said" does not cure madness.
-GSW-
Setting A Guard
I have a friend who shared with me a challenge he had with his wife
He said his wife is a well-accomplished woman who should be well respected and honoured both for her academic accomplishments and her business accomplishments
He said this; however, this is not the case
His wife was often ridiculed, embarrassed, and shamed out of any public space or groups where she found herself.
He said he was suspecting it was a spiritual issue, and he was tired of dealing with it.
I asked him to give me an example of what he meant.
He said the pastor of his church had invited him and his wife to his office the previous day and told him that it had been decided by the church that he and his wife should leave the church
He said he was shocked by the words of the pastor, and he asked the pastor why the church made this decision.
He said the pastor told him to ask his wife.
He said he turned to his wife and asked her what the pastor was talking about
He said his wife just stared at the floor
The pastor later told him that his wife had been spreading all sorts of stories about some members of the church to other members of the church without provocation
Where there is no truth, she concocted white lies, and where there is truth, she twists it to fit her narrative, and most times, the things she told people were not hers to share.
Her husband said this was not new to him. They had been dealing with it for years, and it had led them to change churches and houses four times.
It even affected his wife in her office, as she had been sacked twice for sowing seeds of discord among colleagues
He said the last time they had a serious fight, and he laid down rules for her
He told her he does not want her to have any friends, he must not see anyone coming to visit them at home from her office, or church, or any social group where they both belong, and he does not want to hear her say anything to anyone or about anyone going forward
He said he gave her these terms because he was a quiet man who could not imagine himself being dragged into such issues over and over again.
He said he has also warned her that the next time such an incident happens, he will divorce her
A good name for him is better than the unsolicited embarrassment he kept dealing with because of her.
He said she complied with his rules.
She stopped bringing people to their house, stopped socializing outside their circle, and began attending random fellowships online and offline by herself.
He acknowledged that she needed to talk to people and not turn into a hermit
He just does not want to be a victim of whatever pot of misery he knew she would cook sooner or later.
He said he joined another church and began to grow in fellowship
Naturally, the pastor of this new church would ask for his wife, and he would deflect because he didn't want to bring her to the same church due to her antecedents
He said he kept this going for two years until one Sunday when the pastor's wife introduced a lady to him.
The pastor's wife had assumed he was single and was trying to matchmake him
He said this was why he asked his wife to join him in the same church from that day
His wife joined the church joyfully, believing that he had forgiven her and was integrating her back into his life as a husband should.
He said he warned her that he does not want a repeat of their previous experiences, and she promised him she would keep to herself, make no friends, and mind her business.
He said he believed her because the stakes were high, and he made her aware of it
When the church saw that he was married and had been married for over ten years, they asked him to serve as the head of the Men's fellowship
He said he accepted the role because he knew he could make an impact by helping the men become better and more effective in society.
He said he was shocked when the pastor invited him to his office one sunday and told him that there was an issue among the women of the church which was of grave concern.
The pastor's wife had been leading the Women's fellowship, and his wife had been deliberately maligning and slandering the pastor's wife in a bid to turn the women against her so that she could become the leader of the Women's fellowship.
She believed that if her husband was leading the men, it was only appropriate for her to lead the women.
Witnesses were produced, and they testified that his wife had accused the pastor's wife of all sorts of evil deeds, ranging from adultery to theft and even embezzlement.
He said he cried bitterly that day
He couldn't defend his wife because he knew it was true.
He just didn't know why God gave him such a cross to carry
He said he apologised to the pastor and his wife and left the meeting in shame
He said his wife, unlike previous times, tried to blame everyone instead of accepting that she was wrong
She did this because they had a previous agreement that if she repeated the same cycle, he would file for divorce.
He said his wife said the church was evil, the pastor was evil, and the pastor's wife was a witch
He said he asked her why she wanted to be the leader of the women's fellowship when the pastor was fake and the pastor's wife was a witch
He said it caused a huge rift between them
He said he naturally would forgive and move on from the issue, but he couldn't bring himself to see her with love or be intimate with her after that issue
He was on the verge of making some serious decisions and wanted to know if it was a spiritual issue that could be cured by prayer and fasting
He said outside of spiritual intervention, he saw no other solution and he does not believe he would continue with the marriage
I told him about a scripture my mother shared with me when I was in the university
At the time, my mum believed erroneously (and this is the truth) that I talk too much
So one day she sent me a bible and wrote a note in it that I should pay attention to this scripture and pray the words as a prayer daily
Psalm 141:3 Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch at the door of my lips.
I asked him to share the same scripture with his wife and ask her to pray that scripture daily
PS: It is very possible he didn't share the scripture with his wife, or that his wife did not take the instruction seriously.
(I am not giving an excuse, but I can testify that when applied properly, that scripture works like a charm)
His wife pulled another scandal in their new church, this time it led to a bitter fight after a Sunday service, as the other woman whom his wife was maligning this time didn't take it to the pastor
The woman confronted his wife, and it turned into a dirty fight.
Two weeks later, the man resigned from his job, took his passport (he is a dual citizen), and left Nigeria for America.
He left everything behind, including and most especially his wife.
Every attempt to intervene or reason with him has met with stiff resistance since then.
Securing The Future
My father got married at 21, and my mum was 20.
They were not NEPO babies, but they both came from comfortable backgrounds.
When I compare their life with the stories of most of the young men and young women I know who, like me, got married in our thirties.
I concluded that early marriage is the best.
Amassing body counts is a direct product of late marriages.
I am not saying people in those days were absolute puritans, but they dated with the mindset of getting married.
In today's world, many date just for dating’s sake.
In my lifetime, terms like "We were just sleeping with each other"
"I told him that if i get pregnant I am keeping it"
"I like his whatever, the way it hits me is different, but I don’t plan to marry him.”
"She is just a girl I sleep with when I am bored.”
"The baby is not mine. I admit that I slept with her, but those of us who slept with her were many.”
"She is a club girl, you know, someone to pass around with the drinks.”
"I don’t want to marry him, I sleep with him so that I don’t sink into depression.”
"We have a friends with benefits arrangement.”
"He is married, but I like him and sleep with him, but I am not his side chick. He is just an occasional riding partner.”
"He is engaged, I know his babe, but I had nobody else looking in my direction, so I just sleep with him while he is still available. I can’t sleep with him once he gets married.”
“I didn’t have enough money to get an accommodation and I cannot stay on the street, so I moved in with him and we became live in lovers for three years until he graduated or moved to another city”
I cannot fully express all the things I have heard from both men and women in their late twenties and thirties!
While i am not saying teenagers are holier or that those in their early twenties are better, I understand that at that age, most people really look for love and try to find it.
The quest for economic stability and financial independence was the reason for the delay of many from getting married
Men couldn't get jobs on time and ladies couldn't wait for ever especially when they had options from other men who desired them but couldn't have them legally.
Life is about supply and demand, and where there is legitimate demand, if there is no legitimate supply, nature will come up with smuggled supplies and other contraband.
When my friends from more comfortable backgrounds graduated from Bowen University, the majority of them got married early.
The ladies got married between 21 and 25, and the guys got married between 25 and 27.
Most of them are still happily married, and their marriages are stable.
It is those of us who came from the poor side of the divide that had to wait and wait for things to get better before thinking of marriage
In the process of waiting, there was a lot of trial and error as regarding relationships and as a result, the number of bodies kept growing.
In the last ten years, the lowest body count I have seen has doubled from what it used to be between 2010 and 2020.
People are now hitting double digits, and some would even tell you they have lost count.
If you remove the environmental and poverty from the equation, most of them wouldn’t even meet many of the guys and ladies they slept with in this lifetime.
They would be on school runs instead of wearing skimpy pick-me-up attire at thirty-something!
The men would be taking their family out on picnics and family weekend instead of scrolling through the "pick a baddie" app at 38.
The level of sexual behaviour from both males and females of this generation is directly influenced by poverty.
We couldn't settle down on time, and nobody can cheat nature, so we all did what we believed we had to do in order to keep our sanity.
Recovery from this situational conditioning after we had gotten the financial situation under control has also been a challenge.
Some of the men get married, but their memories of luscious nights between previous thighs keep plaguing them.
They keep looking at some phone numbers and can’t stop remembering experiences they shouldn't have had if not for the situation they were in while poor.
The same is true for ladies.
You date a guy, he is rich and well established, but he is married with children
You didn’t date him because you loved him
You slept with him because he offered you some incentives
When you were getting married, you invited him because you felt he would give you some financial support
In some cases, you even name him the chairman of your wedding.
These decisions were influenced by poverty!
Your neighbourhood, your social class, and who you associate with all contribute to your financial situation and mentality.
Only poor people should be single into their thirties and forties, in my opinion
The exception to this should be those who don’t desire to be married.
If you plan to get married and you are financially stable, you should get married when your body says to do so.
The male body is most sexually virile at 25, and therefore, the male should be married from the age of twenty.
He does not need to use all his strength to service a lady he won’t get married to.
So that years later, the lady keeps dreaming of him after he had gotten married to another woman, and he keeps dreaming of her after she had gotten married to another man.
The same applies to the ladies, the younger they are after the age of eighteen, the stronger their eggs are and the better their performance sexwise.
If you spend all those productive years on strange beds, only to start complaining of fibroids, PCOS, cysts, hormonal issues, and poor menses after getting married.
How fair do you think your assessment of the situation is?
Please don’t let me talk about all the abortions youths have when they are young, only to want to kill pastors with prayer requests when they get married in their thirties.
The little I have seen of life is instructional enough in my opinion.
Early marriage is good for society at large.
My grandmother is seeing her fourth generation at the moment, and she is still alive
Imagine that my parents got married early and our children are ten years older than they are now?
My grandmother would have been seeing her fifth generation by now!
While i know that one cannot solve all the complex issues of relationships or marriages simply by marrying early, I can boldly say that early marriage with good financial backing from both sides works better than all the late marriages with traumatized couples trying to cope with each other that I am seeing nowadays.
Generational wealth is my lot in Christ.
My grandchildren will rule the world if Jesus tarries
The earlier they come, the earlier their courses are set for the future.
Trust Fund and well-set leadership courses are the future I declare for them.
I see tomorrow, and I am setting the course for it.
My daughter is getting married between the age of 21 and 23
My sons are getting married, latest by 25
They cannot be NEPO babies and still suffer the same delays their LAPO parents experienced.
They will give me grandchildren when their eggs are still fresh and their seeds are still virile!
Their children will be my Trust Fund babies, so they can have as many as they want without having to worry about providing for them!
Generational Wealth has come to stay!
Thank you Jesus.
All in till 2031
I didn’t own one till a few months ago
I decided to own some because I got an instruction to do so
For more info on this you can read Jeremiah 32
It is not because we are deserving or worthy
The Lord said a season of prosperity is coming for Nigeria
He said so to me during Buhari’s cash crunch and fuel scarcity season
I was driving from Lagos to Pneuma City in Oyo and I faced a lot of hardship on that journey
As frustrated as I was about Nigeria and the wicked policies of that government, God told me to relax!
He said I am bringing Nigeria into eight years of abundance!
When I got to Pneuma city I shared this news with the brethren and somehow forgot about it.
When 2025 came I began to wonder how I can be a direct beneficiary of the blessings
Do I start a business or own a farm?
I couldn’t do any of these because of the nature of my work
Someone then mentioned the stock market and I said “Yes I can”
I had no fear whatsoever as I put in my little seed and began to water it with my words
I didn’t listen to any financial expert and I am not a financial expert
I just bought as my heart guided me
When 2031 comes, I will ask the Lord what to expect
If the Lord says to keep them, I will
If he also says to sell them, I won’t hesitate
I am betting on Nigeria because the Word of God to me says I should do so.
I am not advertising or inviting anyone to come along
I am only asking that you witness what it means to hear from the Lord and invest in His word.
Therefore you must understand if I see any tweet insulting or cursing Nigeria or predicting economic doom for Nigeria and I tear it to bits.
I am not just defending the integrity of God’s word, I am also defending my seed!
If Jeremiah bought a field as a sign to Israelites that their future is bright even in the middle of their captivity
I hoist here a sign saying “Bet on Nigeria, those who do so shall prosper”
Ps: This is not a political post, it is my personal conviction and regardless of who rules Nigeria as a nation, I serve a higher authority.
-GSW-
Identifying Poverty
Growing up in poverty and surrounded by poverty skews your understanding of the proper way to live a decent life.
It is among the poor folks that statements like "You don't ask a sixteen year old son or daughter where he or she got money from" became a culture
It is among the poor folk that a fifteen-year-old boy or girl would not sleep at home, and nobody would bother to ask where he or she was all night
It is among the poor folks that daughters would have friends who would cover for them when they have to spend the night away from home
One quick text saying "I am out, I have told my mother I am with you. If she calls, tell her I am with you but asleep at the moment." Is all it usually takes.
It is poverty that turns young women into unofficial sex workers in the name of attending parties organized by the rich, just to be part of the aesthetics and provide free sexual services for anyone who would ask for it for a price.
Poverty is the reason you bill any man who asks you out in the name of knowing if he has the capacity to meet your needs.
You are poor and you grew up among poor people; for this reason, the only litmus test you came up with so that you don't end up with another poor person like you is to demand gifts and money from such a person.
Poverty is the reason you say, "The man must make money before marrying any woman so that the woman will not disrespect him."
Money should not be the reason a husband and wife respect each other, but it is so in your case because you are poor, and the only thing that wins your respect is money.
Poverty is the reason you can buy an expensive car, park it in your compound, and your parents will lack the courage to ask you where you got the money to buy it.
Poverty is the reason you are encouraged by your mother to date a fraudster as long as he is meeting all your needs.
Poverty is the reason someone will come to you on the street, offer you a small amount of money in exchange for sex, and you will follow the person without a second thought
Poverty is the reason you turn yourself into an emergency masseuse who goes into men's rooms offering massage services with happy endings
Poverty is the reason you wake up in strange beds and have conversations like "How much for the night?"
Poverty is the reason you are having conversations like "What do you bring to the table?"
You won't have that conversation if the lady is a well-educated and industrious individual who has done well for herself financially.
You, however, will have that conversation if the lady you are talking to about marriage has nothing but her body to offer you in exchange for food, boarding, clothing, family responsibilities, and so on
It is poverty that makes you say, "I am the table"
If a man has to ask you what you are bringing to the table, it means he couldn't see the industriousness in you beyond your make-up and looks.
There are questions you don't ask because the answers are obvious
A woman who is dating a man of substance does not wonder what he is bringing to the table; neither would a man wonder what a woman of substance is bringing to the table.
It is poverty that made it the duty of your boyfriend to "hustle" to buy you things because you are his babe. When you are in a relationship, exchanging gifts is permitted, but it is not a duty or something done out of leisure and desire
If he has to buy you things to prove he loves you, you are poor.
In a normal relationship, giving and receiving gifts are a mutual and natural act
One side does not give in perpetuity, while the other collects continuously like the grave
If your man has to ask you for a gift before you buy him things, you are poor
The quality and value of the things you bought for him must seriously match the quality and value of the things you get from him
You shouldn't get hair worth 1 million and buy his singlet and boxers worth five thousand.
Acts of kindness are an expression of a rich mindset.
If all you have to offer are excuses and "I cannot" or "I will not" ideologies, you are only disguising your poverty under feminism or misorgyny.
Two people who love and care for each other will do things in common without either party thinking such actions depreciate his or her value in the relationship.
If you trade sex for anything more than sex in itself, you are poor
A man and a woman engage in sexual intercourse because they love each other and desire to be with each other that way
If he or she has to give you money or any other gift, for you to feel inclined to sleep with him or her, you are poor.
If your mind is always thinking about all the things you don't have and fixated on how to acquire them by any means necessary, you are poor
If your mind is always thinking about all the things you do have and blooming with gratitude for them to God, you are rich
There are certain levels of conversation that betray the presence and predominance of poverty in the mindset of a person
Anyone who expects you to do for him or her what he or she cannot afford to do for himself or herself is poor.
If she orders food that she cannot afford to pay for because you are the one paying for it, she is poor.,
If he orders a game console that he cannot afford simply because you are the one paying for it, he is poor.
The poor always feel entitled to other people's money.
They always tell a sob story to elicit undue advantage on their target emotionally.
When you go out on a date, listen with your ears and heart open
If he or she starts off on sob stories of how his or her mother is sick and hospitalised, needs to raise funds for school fees, needs to make her hair and make her nails, needs to pay the school fees of her siblings, has a leaking roof or a mechanical issue that has to be resolved immediately...
That is the stench of poverty
A man or woman who is out to keep you company and enjoy a nice time with you will never dump their unresolved challenges on you
You didn't come to them claiming to be the messiah; all you wanted was to spend some time with such a person in order to get to know each other some more.
We have allowed poor people with phones and data to dominate the discussions on love and relationships for far too long on social media
Some of the things we watch and see as content all over social media have made poverty-driven narratives the norm around relationships nowadays
It is time for parents to teach their sons and daughters what it really means to fall in love and walk in love as it ought to be, and not according to all the lies we read every day.
Of course, the poor cannot help behaving according to the dictates of their circumstances
The best thing we can do is identify poverty and walk away from it before we get infected by its venom.
Poor people are masters at emotional manipulation and all forms of devilish blackmail schemes
They get pregnant just to gain access to your money, go diabolical so that you can give them whatever they ask for without asking questions.
Those born into poverty are always looking for a way to climb out of the trenches.
Most of them use others to climb out of it, while some of them use other means, like education, creating value in society, and developing themselves to climb out of it.
The former never really gets out of poverty
They are the ones who justify crime by claiming they were only taking back what someone stole from their forefathers.
No matter how much they manage to acquire in a lifetime, they are and will always be poor
-GSW-
She Who Looks At The Wind
Seeking advice from certain individuals can ruin your life.
Our circumstances are not the same
Our life experiences too are not the same
You have a career
You met a multimillionaire who wanted to marry you
He offered you double your salary per month and a fixed deposit of your annual income as at when you met in dollars for your personal investment.
He said he requires you to travel with him on some of his business tours because a lot of ladies try to take advantage of his wealth when he was alone and he fell for their antics several times, costing him so much emotionally and financially
He said he needed stability
He had done his analysis, and he realized that rather than sleep in hotels and pay so much for company and comfort, he would be better served to get married and live in his own house.
He hid nothing of his experiences, and he stated clearly why he wanted to marry you.
You went to one big sister from your church for counsel
The sister told you not to let go of your career for any man
You worked hard to earn your MBA, you worked hard to earn your LLB.
Any man who wants to marry you must adjust to you
You are no longer a small fish in the ocean
You came back to the guy with your own proposal
He should buy a house close to your office, so that you can hop in and out of the office without traffic
Your career is non-negotiable
He should get domestic staff to take care of the house and kitchen needs
You will do bedroom duties whenever you are not too tired from work
He told you it wouldn’t work for him
You said he should give it a try before writing off the idea
He said okay
The next day, you called realtors asking for the cost of buildings around your office
They started dropping prices
250 Million, 300 Million
You gave him the feedback
He started laughing
He said, “You expect me to build my life around your career, to invest 300 million in a property just because it is close to your office…
What if you get fired tomorrow, the office goes bankrupt, or you land a better job at another company?
“How much is your salary?” He asked
You said, “One million naira a month plus quarterly bonus of about 250,000 Naira.
He said he has a house he has built, and he sees no reason to abandon it or discard it for another house simply because he could afford to do so.
The house needs a wife who will help him turn it into a home
That is the deal
He will not build his life around your career
You accused him of trying to gaslight you into becoming a housewife
You said you will never build your life around any man
You are determined to work, earn your own money, and share your life with any man who is willing to settle for these terms.
Your man took a long moment of silence.
At the end of it, he said, “It is true that two can never walk together except they are in agreement. What you want and what I want are very different, even though I know you love me and I love you too.’
He took his leave
You call that your aunt again
You told her everything that transpired
She encouraged you to stand your ground
She said if he truly loves you, he will show it by conceding to some of your demands.
Your man stopped calling
At first, you felt he was still a bit miffed about your heated argument but as hours turned into days, you began to panic.
You have always known that you cannot marry a career person because you are also a career person
When you prayed, you asked God for someone who owns his own business and is financially independent because you saw no sense in your husband running around to please his boss while you are also doing the same
You just didn’t consider that a man who is financially independent will be a thoroughbred alpha male who will dictate his own terms of engagement
The person you went to ask for counsel does not have the prerequisite experience to guide you aright.
It’s like asking a farmer how to be a good fisherman.
You waited two weeks before swallowing your pride
You hid behind “I just felt I should check on you since you are not checking on me”
He saw your message and replied casually that he will be sending his driver to come and drop some of your things that you forgot in his house
You felt he was carrying himself like the best thing after sliced bread
You told him to tell his driver to drop whatever it is with the security man at the gate of your estate
Three months later, you met him at a restaurant
He was with your counsellor’s younger sister
They were dating
You called your counselor
You asked her how come your boyfriend and her younger sister are dating
Your counselor said her younger sister came to visit her, and they got talking about many things
The conversation went in the direction of relationships, and she told her younger sister all about your travails
Her younger sister then told her that the man you were giving terms and conditions to was the kind of man she had always dreamt of getting married to
Even though she had a job, she was willing to resign and become a full housewife
She was willing to travel the world with her husband and play host to his guests
He was her dream man
Your counselor then felt that since you had broken up with your man, and it makes no sense to waste a good man simply because he does not fit into your plans, she should allow her sister to give this dream man of hers a try.
So she gave her younger sister the information about your man, and her younger sister pursued it with rugged determination.
You felt betrayed, but you could not really express why
You then reach out to your man asking for a meeting, just for you guys to smooth things over
He said he is now in a relationship and didn’t see any reason to meet with you without upsetting his current babe
At that point, you felt the matter was no longer natural
The other lady must have done something diabolical
You felt with prayer the man would be set free to remember his love for you and come back to you
You called for prayer and Counselling
I told you what the Lord said to me as we discussed
Matthew 11:16 “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
17
“‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
It is not the enemy, dear sister
Trying to build a living thing around a dead thing is always a bad idea
You don’t build a family around a career; you build a family around purpose and destiny
A career never ends, you do your part, and you leave the stage for others to continue
A career is never your thing; it is something you do for the benefit of your employer
Your home is yours
Your children are yours
Fulfilling the purpose of God for your life is paramount
Don’t major in the minor
This does not mean those who have a career should dump it for the sake of starting a family
Life is not black and white; there are so many shades of grey in between
Anyone who desires to make the right choice must keep an open mind
Solomon said she who looks at the wind will fail to sow and she who looks at the cloud shall not reap
-GSW-
Solomon said she who looks at the wind will fail to sow, and she who looks at the cloud shall not reap
Just sitting here and looking back at today.
This was a beautiful day, and it has been me telling the Holy Spirit the things happening around me and giving Him full gist, not that He doesn't know though.
AHH and we threw shyness away and had a "you cannot shame the shameless" day
I did like to tell a crippled right now, stand up and walk the Lord has made you whole!!!
So if you see this tweet and there's a crippled around you, tell the person that "Bethia said stand up and walk, the Lord has made you whole!!"
This is done by the power of the Holy Spirit.
NEVER A VICTIM
A Nigerian born again Christian medical doctor relocated to the UK with his family
He got a job at a Hospital and he settled down quite well with his family
One day, some doctors and nurses in the hospital were having a chat
He had been warned by his wife and other folks to keep a professional relationship at work and not engage in any form of personal or interpersonal skirmishes and he was towing that line
One of the female colleagues came to him to ask him if he would like to go for a drink with the other ladies that evening just to unwind
He asked the lady where they were going
The lady told her it is a nightclub, where they could all relax after work will around 2AM
He said he sees nothing productive in wasting his time in a nightclub when he should be with his family.
Then he made a mistake...
He said "You ladies should do something more productive with your time rather than frolicking nightclubs and mixing with all sorts of characters that crawl out of all sorts of dangerous holes at night.
If you feel restless, pray.
Give your life to Jesus and he will give you rest"
Maybe it is the tone he used or his body language or something he said
He found himself facing a disciplinary committee for "unprofessional conduct and hate speech in a work space"
He had to do a lot of fasting and praying so that his license would not be withdrawn or suspended.
God came through for him
He was verbally reprimanded by the committee, told to apologise to the three ladies and transferred to another hospital in another location to continue his contract.
He called me and during the crisis and after the verdict was given
I assurred him, the issue was to serve a greater purpose and he should not feel like a victim regardless of what was done to him
He listened to me
I got a call a few minutes ago, the same guy just got a very good job in another country with spousal benefits and full citizenship for him and his family.
The person who recommended him for the job was his boss in this new office who took to him as soon as he arrived and put him through the ropes to ensure he acclamatizes very well on the job.
This is the testimony regarding believers who know who they are in Christ.
They know that all things work together for their good because they love God and are called according to His purpose
-GSW-