Day 12 (12th May)

I woke up with thanksgiving on my lips and in my heart.  Each day that God wakes us up is a blessing. I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to take time out of the buziness of life and spend quality time on things that is entirely under the direction of God. For some time now, I’ve been discontent about the limited time I spent focused on God. I try to find time amongst other things (doing school run, work, running the home, We CAN, church activities particularly on Saturdays and Sundays) but I still have a heavy heart that I am not living for God the way I should but expecting God to fit into my schedule.

Just to have the time to reflect, read the Word at my own space and articulate insights from God is fantastic and a blessing. I don’t want to cram a lot of activities into the six months. It’s interesting that most people when they hear of my sabbatical, they ask me what I will be doing. I think they expect me to say either doing some studies (which I am doing not just to seek a world qualification), where I would be going (expecting me to do some travelling) and when I tell them I want to spend time on spiritual development, for Christian they understand immediately as all genuine and passionate Christian know the challenges of dedicating time to the things of the Lord. The unbelievers look surprise! This is just the perfect thing for me to do at this time in my life and I’m so looking forward to taking this journey with God.

I did some write up on the insight from studying the book of Luke on the temptation of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit opened my eyes of understanding to three key aspect that the enemy uses to keep people away from God. I have heard many sermons on this temptation but more in terms of how Jesus overcame. I got shown a different aspect on what He was tempted on. I am writing this up as part of my collation on Spiritual Maturity. Sorry, you have to read more on it from there. Check extracts on my blog http://ajourneyintospiritualmaturity.blogspot.com/2011/05/heritage-of-servants-of-lord.html

I ventured into the city today. I mean Lagos center (Isale Eko, Idumota, Balogun – you get the picture). And I drove there. I went with a friend of mine to buy some stuff to take back to Southie (South Africa). First he wanted to go to a shop which we couldn’t locate. After walking round and round he eventually gave up and we went to get some Gospel CDs. From where we parked the car to where the CD sellers group themselves, we walked and walked. We eventually got to the first set of sellers, sat down and we were shown some CDs just for my friend to say no, got this, got that, this are not the one I’m looking for. So up we got, the trek continues. Well, not after I bought a selection of Christian movies at an inflated price, I know ,but I felt sorry for the guy selling it. He claimed he only makes a tiny profit because these particular movies (Mt Zion) are more expensive, not sold in Lagos and so on and so forth. Oh yes, I was taken in.

Off we went trodding along, looking for the particular gospel CDs my friend wanted. Eventually, we went through a passage way (Isale Eko is full of these types of passage ways), got to a man selling CDs in a corner e told him what we wanted, and then he said we should follow him. So we followed him, climbed a spiral (at least it looked spiral ) stairs, maneuvering the uneven steps and curves and holding very tightly to the (very) thin  staircase rail because it was situated right at the edge of the building, it’s quite possible to miss your footing and tumble headlong into a painful fall

Now, in 9ja we know how to turn anything into something. We got to this upstairs warehouse and I was blown away by the rows and rows of CDs both video and audio. The movies I bought at the earlier place for 350 naira, we got here for 280 (so I was taken in!). And thank goodness my friend got what he wanted and he bought sets and sets of different gospel music. I did not bother to buy any except a set of traditional hymns, because I know I will ‘borrow’ what he bought and he has a very good taste I must say. I think I still have some of his audio CDs in Southie and they are good.

We left Lagos to go to Surulere. It was about closing time now and I was dreading the after office traffic. On our way, we were reminiscing about the good old days. They were still some structure in Lagos that has been there since our childhood; Mandilas House, Elephant House, a lot has given way to remodeled structure like Leventis where we used to buy our clothes when I was a little girl. We took some video clips which I will share later.

The traffic oh my word! On our way home on the 3^rd mainland bridge, it  was move for a second, standstill for a minute. Having to do some maneuvering and fighting for your space has started making my head pound like a pounder. I was thinking to myself, never again will I come to Lagos in the afternoon to finish in the evening. We must come early in the morning to finish in the afternoon. We made it home after about 4 hours in the traffic. The heat! I got home, had a shower, got something to eat in order to take some pain relievers and went to bed. Needless to say, I could not do any write up this evening and I missed my reading targets. I’m just reflecting its better I get the reading done in the morning before I go anywhere!

I managed to call the girls before I lay me down my head to sleep.

Thank you God for your mercies today and always!