Because I keep my word, here’s the final installment of my 2016 Lessons Series for your viewing pleasure 🙂

9. All the loved-up Instagram photos, the Facebook shout outs, the public displays of affection… ha! What no one tells you is that relationships are WORK! Hella work. Yes, even when you are made for each other, it takes work. You’re two separate people from different backgrounds, with different experiences, viewing the world through different lenses. Add the fact that you’re different genders so the world perceives you in different ways! Is that enough difference for y’all?! If I had a Dollar for the number of times I’ve realized that BOTH parties in a relationship must learn to stoop to conquer?! The number of times you must both learn to say I’m sorry when all you really want to do is gloat and scream while pointing, “AHA, I WIN!” Or just the number of times you really just want to find trouble because Wahala Baby is your spirit name…I would be balling. But time after time both of you choose the other over the stress, over the pain, over your personal pettiness, you both choose to remember the million beautiful things and put each other first over the tiny limitations. That takes courage, discipline, commitment. That requires God. I often ask God to give Obi’m and I, hearts that are softened towards each other so we readily want to forgive, genuinely want to make amends and deliberately make effort to avoid hurting each other. It’s a vital prayer point to make a relationship thrive. Relationships are such a growing process, I really understood that in 2016. This sharing of yourself so completely takes everything out of you: selfishness and pride, and replaces it with selflessness, vulnerability and openness. As Eki says, relationships are work but not hard work. It’s beautiful work because a good relationship grows and molds you into the person God created you to be.

10. “We pull down every stronghold that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ”… “[we] knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and destroy false arguments. ⁵ We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.” -2 Corinthians 10: 4 & 5

This is one of my absolute favourite scriptures.  Many read it and think, perhaps due to the aggressive imagery of pulling down, exalts, strongholds, of demons fighting angels and vicious forces of darkness. No brah, the devil is a gentleman, you ain’t know??! He doesn’t stomp all over your mind with his dirty feet; he takes off his shoes…and wipes the dirt softly, gently. All over your brain. He drops a thought-crumb here, pours a sliver of a thought there, these things little by little build into a tsunami of evil over time. Without discernment you won’t even realise that these thoughts weren’t originally yours! You won’t even know that an evil thought that isn’t from you has infiltrated your thought-space. You just figure, “It’s the way I am, I can’t change/ It’s how people just are/ It’s the way things have always been, the way of the world/ It’s just life.” Sex before marriage isn’t realistic in the 21^st century or no one can have a real, strong relationship without sex? That’s a stronghold. An addiction cannot be broken by only conviction and confession? That’s a stronghold. Nigerian men must cheat? That’s a stronghold. Nigerian women are _________ fill in the blank and it’s probably with a stronghold! Lol!

Think of the hundred little comments we hear every day, even from people we trust and love. So much of what the world tells us is untruth, pretension. One version of the bible uses the word “imaginations” another calls these strong holds “pretensions”. A pretension is a thing that bears a semblance to the real thing. They are imitations so they’re a lie. There is a higher truth and that is God’s word. It’s bankable, it has existed through the ages and stood true for all sorts of people in a myriad of situations. That is the truth we can depend on. It’s so important to “examine every spirit” (1 John 4:1), to be able to see these pretensions for what they are and drag them down so that God’s light and love can be exalted in your mind. It makes all the difference.

11. Finally, lesion 11 from 2016? I do THE most and I love it! I am so proud of myself. I organized another successful TEDx talk- on a shoe string budget mind you! Started a successful radio show, did well at work, supported those I love and I am planning a dahhhling wedding to my best friend! Eeek, what an absolutely amazing year! What a wonder-working, indefatigable God who just continues to fight in my corner. Like Paul, if my entire body was to magically turn into tongues, I would still never ever have enough words to say, “THANK YOU JESUS!” For the incessant goodness, that loving kindness You alone are so fond of. David said, “Ah ah, is this how you treat everyone?!” (2 Sam 7:18 paraphrased). Thank you for treating me special. Thank you for making me special. Thank you for ordering my steps aright in 2016. And to think the ONLY thing you want in return is ME. Lil’ ole me?! Just tell me what You want to do and give me the discipline to do it. Break my heart for the things that break yours, make me daily more and more like you, help me see people the way You see them and please, teach me how to love the way that You love. Then use me for your glory in 2017.