Unlocking Africa's Prophetic Destiny - Building Through Wisdom (Part 1)
Towards the end of the 20th century, one young pregnant lady who was due to deliver a baby notified her husband that she felt her time was up.
They took the packed stuff that they had prepared for delivery onto the car and drove to the hospital. Getting to the maternity ward they told the attendant nurse that they had come to have a baby and they wanted urgent attention.
The nurse responded with a question, "Were the waters broken?" "Do you feel any significant birth pains since you seem to be in a hurry?"
"Not anything significant or scarry", replied the pregnant woman.
The nurse scoffingly laughed at the couple saying, "If you can still walk on your own without any struggle and are not feeling any recurring contraction pains then you are not ready".
She invited her workmate who has on the other side of the foyer with laughter, "come and hear this lady's wild joke, this woman in her current condition thinks she is ready for delivery".
"Is this your first baby", asked the other nurse?
"This is our third", replied the husband. "The first two, my wife had very long periods of painful labour, but not this time". "Hurry, or she will deliver on your desk, the baby is coming just now".
The nurses had to hurry and in about 15 minutes they had a healthy baby in their hands.
This story is my animated version of the true story of Terry Mize and his wife. Terry Mize is a minister of the word in America and a missionary to different parts of the world. This incident happened after they got a revelation from the word of God that the cross of Christ had reversed the original curse pronounced on the first couple. After the sin of Adam and Eve, God pronounced to eve,
"I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children" [Genesis 3:16 NIV].
Their paradigm changed with exposure to a different form of wisdom and there was a difference, worlds apart, between earlier deliveries and this one. They prayed that her wife would not have a labour period of more than 15 minutes and it would have minimal pain. It happened according to their prayer.
This story speaks a lot to our journey of unlocking Africa's prophetic destiny. You may be looking at your life and using conventional wisdom to think that you cannot be successful according to some of the global standards that you are now exposed to in this globalised world.
There are ways that the systems of the world have set that you have to follow to succeed in relationships, marriage and family, business, or any of your endeavours. You seem to be so far away from them and you have concluded that success is not your portion.
You might have picked some of the promises from the word of God and expecting the power of God to miraculously bring success to your table. This is Africa's curse, a superstitious approach to success. It holds many individuals, families, churches, businesses, politicians and other different people groups and organisations in bondage.
Development theorists have come with different explanations for Africa's underdevelopment. One theoretical perspective identified as modernisation has concluded that Africa would have to follow through different stages of development that the developed world has taken to succeed. There is only one way to success and Africa has to follow that. This will mean Africa would need almost 1000 years to rise. Who will they have to enslave, colonize and exploit? What natural resource will they have to exploit from outside? This will definitely not work to unlock our prophetic destiny.
Many also have this thinking in terms of their individual lives and some of their endeavours. We do not have to use some of the ways that others have used to succeed.
Some of the success that we see and envy today in businesses, families, relationships and other endeavours have been a result of the exploitation of others, selfish manipulation strategies and other unethical practices.
It is success birthed on the suffering and pains of others. This cannot be the success that we should envy, but some are ready to follow because of the deceptive look of the seeming success.
We can envy some of the seeming success and development in the developed world that they are prescribing for Africa, but it came at a huge cost. A cost of the loss of humanity and values, a societal decay, destruction of the family institution and the death of virtue, an increase in divorces and loss of destiny and direction for the younger generations in the name of democracy and human rights. A loss of society in pursuit of financial, moral and spiritual freedom.
On the other side are what are identified as Dependency theorists. They conclude that Africa's development challenges are a result of external factors like colonialism, the slave trade and a globalised system that has kept Africa from participating significantly in its own development.
This can make sense, but how long are we going to wait until the balance of power shifts and who will do it for us. Till when are we going to continue playing the blame game. Others are succeeding and developing amidst the same adverse conditions and unbalanced playing field.
The nurse responded with a question, "Were the waters broken?" "Do you feel any significant birth pains since you seem to be in a hurry?"
"Not anything significant or scarry", replied the pregnant woman.
The nurse scoffingly laughed at the couple saying, "If you can still walk on your own without any struggle and are not feeling any recurring contraction pains then you are not ready".
She invited her workmate who has on the other side of the foyer with laughter, "come and hear this lady's wild joke, this woman in her current condition thinks she is ready for delivery".
"Is this your first baby", asked the other nurse?
"This is our third", replied the husband. "The first two, my wife had very long periods of painful labour, but not this time". "Hurry, or she will deliver on your desk, the baby is coming just now".
The nurses had to hurry and in about 15 minutes they had a healthy baby in their hands.
This story is my animated version of the true story of Terry Mize and his wife. Terry Mize is a minister of the word in America and a missionary to different parts of the world. This incident happened after they got a revelation from the word of God that the cross of Christ had reversed the original curse pronounced on the first couple. After the sin of Adam and Eve, God pronounced to eve,
"I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children" [Genesis 3:16 NIV].
Their paradigm changed with exposure to a different form of wisdom and there was a difference, worlds apart, between earlier deliveries and this one. They prayed that her wife would not have a labour period of more than 15 minutes and it would have minimal pain. It happened according to their prayer.
This story speaks a lot to our journey of unlocking Africa's prophetic destiny. You may be looking at your life and using conventional wisdom to think that you cannot be successful according to some of the global standards that you are now exposed to in this globalised world.
There are ways that the systems of the world have set that you have to follow to succeed in relationships, marriage and family, business, or any of your endeavours. You seem to be so far away from them and you have concluded that success is not your portion.
You might have picked some of the promises from the word of God and expecting the power of God to miraculously bring success to your table. This is Africa's curse, a superstitious approach to success. It holds many individuals, families, churches, businesses, politicians and other different people groups and organisations in bondage.
Development theorists have come with different explanations for Africa's underdevelopment. One theoretical perspective identified as modernisation has concluded that Africa would have to follow through different stages of development that the developed world has taken to succeed. There is only one way to success and Africa has to follow that. This will mean Africa would need almost 1000 years to rise. Who will they have to enslave, colonize and exploit? What natural resource will they have to exploit from outside? This will definitely not work to unlock our prophetic destiny.
Many also have this thinking in terms of their individual lives and some of their endeavours. We do not have to use some of the ways that others have used to succeed.
Some of the success that we see and envy today in businesses, families, relationships and other endeavours have been a result of the exploitation of others, selfish manipulation strategies and other unethical practices.
It is success birthed on the suffering and pains of others. This cannot be the success that we should envy, but some are ready to follow because of the deceptive look of the seeming success.
We can envy some of the seeming success and development in the developed world that they are prescribing for Africa, but it came at a huge cost. A cost of the loss of humanity and values, a societal decay, destruction of the family institution and the death of virtue, an increase in divorces and loss of destiny and direction for the younger generations in the name of democracy and human rights. A loss of society in pursuit of financial, moral and spiritual freedom.
On the other side are what are identified as Dependency theorists. They conclude that Africa's development challenges are a result of external factors like colonialism, the slave trade and a globalised system that has kept Africa from participating significantly in its own development.
This can make sense, but how long are we going to wait until the balance of power shifts and who will do it for us. Till when are we going to continue playing the blame game. Others are succeeding and developing amidst the same adverse conditions and unbalanced playing field.
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| Unlocking Africa's Prophetic Destiny - Building Through Wisdom (Part 1) |
This thinking cascades even to individual, family and organisational perceptions. We blame the devil, generational curses and demonic forces for our failures to get the grip on success. This is why Africans now believe in the supernatural powers to save them. There is a place of power in development but it is not in real building as we shall explore in this journey.
The secret to unlocking Africa's prophetic destiny is in a very different approach. We have the power and we see it all over in churches and even those in the occult. What is missing is the Wisdom dimension. It is not a kind of wisdom that the developed world has used. This wisdom of the world has come at a cost of loss of society. It has to be a different kind of wisdom.
The approach to unlock Africa's prophetic destiny is articulated by the first century revolutionary in these words,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. [1 Corinthians 1:19-21,24]
There are two dimensions to unlock our prophetic destiny. These are Power and Wisdom, we need both. Africa has one dimension of power, we will need the other dimension of Wisdom. This is why l am saying in this season." #BuildingThroughWisdom'.
The secret to unlocking Africa's prophetic destiny is in a very different approach. We have the power and we see it all over in churches and even those in the occult. What is missing is the Wisdom dimension. It is not a kind of wisdom that the developed world has used. This wisdom of the world has come at a cost of loss of society. It has to be a different kind of wisdom.
The approach to unlock Africa's prophetic destiny is articulated by the first century revolutionary in these words,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. [1 Corinthians 1:19-21,24]
There are two dimensions to unlock our prophetic destiny. These are Power and Wisdom, we need both. Africa has one dimension of power, we will need the other dimension of Wisdom. This is why l am saying in this season." #BuildingThroughWisdom'.
