Thread by @GbengaWemimo

I often wonder how i got here
What if I didn't respond when He called?
What if I insisted on digging for water all by myself
What if I didn't pay attention to His prompting and calling?
What if I still slacked as I once did because it was an unpredictable path and I had mouths

to feed
What if I didn't see his visitations as anything but the reassurance of His realness?
What if i had allowed the ones who said "Conform" and
"Fall in line" to badger my spirit into submission
What if I had allowed my past to drown me in uncertain waters?
I remember a call

I received from a certain Brother Emmanuel who I went to the University with some years ago.
At the time I was working for Ekklesia Magazine and the magazine depended on support from believers who sowed seed into the ministry and partnered with its founder. I joined them in 2008

I was their "money man" (Not in terms of giving me money but in terms of being the one the ministry sends out at the end of the month to collect pledges, offerings and partner seed from salary earners all over Lagos. Pastor Kehinde Bayekusi was the brains behind Ekklesia, he was

the first man of God i saw in person who left a job with Mobil to become a publisher that was solely reliant of "charity" work. His ministry in my opinion was a tough one, he drove a Chrysler which someone sowed into the ministry and did all things as one sent by God. I didn't

envy him at all!
Last I heard of him, he relocated abroad after the magazine folded up.
This brother saw my phone number on one of the magazines as a marketer and called to lambaste me for defrauding people in the name of Jesus
I was very sensitive at that period of my life and I

didn't want to be labeled by anybody.
I foolishly resigned and joined one man running a start-up business Ojota for a brief season marketing customized and branded waste bins.
I knew it had nothing to do with my path in life but i was so scared, God, I was so haunted by the ghost

of the past that I sent myself on spiritual exile! I was made to think God cannot walk with such as I. Somehow I kept going to church, trying to work my way out of the guilt I carried in my heart for so long
Trying to pay penance for mistakes I made that affected other believers

who loved and trusted me once but whom I have repaid with my disappointing choices
How could God love such as I?
How could the brethren accept such as I?
The news is everywhere, I was irredeemable?
I was the lost without a desire to be found
I remember those days spent on the

couch of pain and regret
My sweat and tears indelibly stained that couch
I just didn't how I got into the hole I dug and I was too lost in the maze to get out
Self-pity is an evil forest
Regret is a swamp
Once you get into either, the only way is downward!
Your tears will make

your path muddy and slippery
It is like digging one's grave before facing the hangman's noose
None knew the burden on my young shoulders
I had seen a glorious future in 2007
All was bleak in 2008
I was practically a walking dead in 2009
None saw it, none but the One who loves

unconditionally
The Holy Spirit came for me in 2009, August 8!
That was the call out of the dark place
He said "Son, why do you refrain from my love?"
I had no answer
I had assumed he wouldn't want ought to do with me because of my failings
I had made a monumental mistake in my

judgment
I treated him like a man
I misjudged the one true friend who I ought to run to for help
I assumed He was my enemy and had cast me away too
That day, He was all smile and warmth
He was open and inviting
Sincerely, I felt it was a trick my grandmother used to play on us as

children.
If you offend my grandmother, she would pretend all was well. Out of the blue, she would ask you to bring her something (A cup of water, a broom, an empty plate) When you are about to give her what she asked you to bring, she would suddenly grab your wrist and draw you

close to herself
Before you can say GSW, you will feel her slap and pinch on your body.
She still did it with me when i took my grandchildren to our family house in the village recently, I fell for it!
So that was what I felt the Holy Spirit's friendliness and love was that night

I walked into his light reluctantly and cried out the guilt
I cried until suddenly I didn't feel like the whole world was on my shoulders anymore
I slept for the first time after many months without heaving and startling awake
That was the turn around i needed
The next day one of

the pastors in the church i was attending at the time asked me if i would be free to follow him to Ajah for a ministration as his interpreter
Oh, God!
Oh, God!
That brother wouldn't know it was the Holy Spirit that sent him to instruct me subtly that I am still relevant in the

plan of God!
I followed him to Ajah, we were treated like royalty and even given honorarium!
Honorawhat?
I said I didn't want
The ministration was enough for me but the Pastor insisted I had to take it
The Maze gave way after then
I was totally out of the doldrums
His love sought

me out.
There is none of us that is too far gone to be saved
What is it that has weakened your walk and broken your hip like the hip of Jacob?
Is it money?
Is it power?
Is there an addiction?
Are you a liar?
A cheat and a thief?
Are you a slave to anger and strife?
Are you hard

hearted or full of bitterness
Are you choking under the yoke of religion or broken by the bonds of masturbation?
Is it your marriage? Your finances? Your dignity?
How many women have you slept with?
What is your body count dear sister?
Have you embezzled God's money or swindled

his church?
What have you broken?
Is it your mind or your body?
Do you think He has deserted or abandoned you?
You're feeling like ending it all?
I have met your kinsman-redeemer, the one whose love is melody and music
What a lover he is
Wow
Do you know that his love also washes?

Like the way that lady caught in adultery walked away holier than her accusers?
You were the one who messed up, yet your encounter with him transforms your reality in such a way that those whom you wronged would wonder how you became a shining light powered by the Holy Spirit

Dont give up on God!
No matter how clumsy and crooked your path is
His burden is truly light and his yoke easy

If you see anything Christlike in any believer, please note, that such didn't do that by self
He or she was made and is still being made by the Holy Spirit daily!

I am inviting you to come back into His love
To return to the One whose reality is truth and Love
I am inviting you to the water of washing and the spirit of light
I am inviting into the Son
Jesus loves you
The Holy Spirit loves you
Do not mind any other
Just come to Jesus now!