Run Your Race with God

A very long time ago I understood that whatever God doesn’t want for me, I certainly won’t have. If God doesn’t help me I become helpless. This is why I don’t compare myself with other people.

The simple reality of my life is that if God doesn’t help me in certain areas, in God’s own miraculous way, I will be helpless. Fortunately, God doesn’t do anything except to God’s own pleasure, in God’s own time. Through my life I could say that God actually does things to God’s own pleasure and makes them beautiful in God’s own time.

I strongly believe that having this understanding of ourselves and knowing fully who we are in God and where we are standing in God’s time can go a long way to save us from problems in life. This is my faith. 

As a young boy I loved to be educated. I wanted to acquire education as far as the Lord could help me. But growing up was another experience for me. I come from a polygamous home where love was a bit scarce—particularly due to my mother’s absence around—and I grew up lonely despite living among “family members.” I left home as a teenager and mingled with boys on the street to do whatever they were doing; but along the way, I met Christ (again) and rededicated my life to him.  

By the time I was to go back to school, it was already nine years after I left secondary school. My interest in touching anything that had to do with the pursuit of higher education was already dead. I was a secondary school dropout because I couldn’t afford to pay for the senior secondary certificate examination. But one day during my morning devotion, the Lord said to me, “Stand up and go and obtain Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) form,” and told me the course to study.  

JAMB is a mandatory examination one must take in order to enter into institutions of higher education in Nigeria. It is taken only after you have passed your senior secondary school exit examinations. And for the course God asked me to study, I did not have a required subject. But I went to obtain the form, and God made provision for me to be able to take that examination and everything was done within a year. I was able to wade through many obstacles during that period of my life because I believe I didn’t send myself to school. I have this faith in my heart: that if God does not help me, I am helpless, so I always rely on God and grace to wade through challenges.  

When it was time for me to take my teacher registration examination, which was to qualify me as a certified teacher, I had the challenge of an increased exam fee. But on a fateful morning, I heard in my spirit a voice that said, “You will be successful.” To the glory of God, the money was provided, and I went ahead with the exam. Today I am a graduate and certified teacher who specializes in Religious Studies and Digital Literacy.

My life is built around God and whatever God makes happen for me is all I have got. So I always say: run your race with God and compare yourself with no one.