You know that “prayer” that your Mama used to “pray” for you back in the day, you know, way back when you used to get up to a little bit of childish foolishness? She would side-eye you and be like, “Hmm…it’s okay sha. Don’t worry. One day, when you are older and you have your own family, you will understand better.” Well, that’s really a thing, o! One day, when you are older, has come, hasn’t it? God only knows how many aha! moments I’ve had since I started adulting, and I’d be like, Ah! Mummy and daddy told me o! What I want to share with you today is one of them. If you had told me ten years ago that one day, I would write a blog about this, I would have asked you what a blog is. But alas, here we are.
It’s April 2! The birth of a new month. Growing up, this was significant. My parents would summon us early in the morning for family prayers, and my dad would impart to us a word that he had received from God for the family for that month. It was most often just a series of Bible verses with a message from the Lord, thoughtfully prayed through and pieced together. My dad is not a man of many words. My parents would then pray with us and sort of try to keep the theme of that message running during the month. My parents believed so much in the value of searching God’s heart for a word for the family for the ensuing month, that the tradition endured even after my brothers and I left home. Didn’t matter where we were in the country, or in the world for that matter, give or take some adjustments when we got married and started our own families, come 5am-ish on the 1st, ping! There was the text, or email, or the WhatsApp group message. Word for the Amosun family for the month. Now, I was a practicing Christian, well, for most parts anyway, sometimes in the stands, sometimes in the game, but generally, I had walked with God enough to know that this thing my parents did was good. But true appreciation has only really hit in recent years, when I met life, and my paths clicked – I discovered, I needed God’s Word in me to inform my identity; I needed God’s Word in me if I was going to help teach my children, and others who I am responsible for, to cherish God’s Word and define themselves by it.
Wait, is there a Bible passage, or a New Testament commandment, or an end time revelation, that says “Thou shalt have a spiritual tradition at the start of a new month?” Not that I know of. Neither have I found a “thus saith the Lord” to support this. If I said I had, it would be an April Fool’s (plus 1 day) joke. Sorry, I just had to slip that in by force (*grinning goofily*). But…it can never hurt to have a bucket of “things we do once a month as a family”, you know, like identity-markers that bind us together with those we love? And how awesome it would be if that bucket included a whole lot of eternity-driven stuff as well, like sharing a word for the month with your family or circle of loved ones? That would be a splendid, I believe. It’s worth the try, I think. That, or any other Word-based richness that we purposefully embed into our lives so that we stick closer to our Father with undiluted fervour. Not to mention the legacy of treasures that we would be gifting to our children and others who we are responsible for. This is the kind of stuff that echoes in eternity.
Ah! Mummy and daddy told me o! They said that one day, when I met life, I would understand why it was no skin off their backs to wake up at 4am and cry out to the Lord for His Word of life for the family, and to click repeat, month in- and month-out, doing it all over again, even when it was perhaps not appreciated like it should have been. Now I get it. Respect. Check out.
So, do you have any monthly, quarterly or other-timely God-centred family traditions that you would like to share? I’d love to hear about them, and so would other truth-seekers. There are more ways to entrench God’s Word in your family life than the one I just shared. So the more ideas we can share, the merrier. The keys here are really just purposefulness and a genuine desire to have a Word-centred family or circle of loved ones. And if you do not have any such traditions in your family or circle of loved ones, WOLS? What’s Our Lord Sayin’? Do you think this would be beneficial for you as a believer in Christ? Please check out Deuteronomy 11:18-21, Joshua 24:15, John 17:17 and 2 Timothy 3:14-17, as you mull it all over in your heart, and do share your thoughts in a personal email or comment below; let’s do some truth-seekin’ together. Then you could share your findings as well. Or perhaps, you just want to give it a go, maybe start by asking God for something that would work for you or your loved ones. You could just check out what others are doing and try it out, see if it works. I’m sure we will have some other suggestions from other truth-seekers in the comments section. Whatever the case may be, please, don’t just read this and walk on by. There’s never going to be a more convenient time. And time is tick-tocking right on by. Oh and very important, don’t over spiritualise it. It’s not something that God will hold over your head as a life sentence. The Lord gushes over you with love. He wants to be the centre of your life and your family’s life because He loves you and has beyond-this-world desires for you. Literally. So just chill, make a decision or two, to entrench in your life a tradition that centres your family and loved ones around God’s Word, and watch how this will transform your lives. Yes, and do holler back to share what you decided on.
I love you guys and trust me, the Lord does not allow me to not pray for you. It’s actually one of the conditions for this work. And that does not even begin to touch on the fringes of how much He loves you. I pray for you.
Thank you for reading and engaging. I’d love to hear from you! So please do go ahead and put your comments in the section below, or you could send me a private message on thenarrowgateway@gmail.com. And don’t forget to like my page on Facebook (@thenarrowgateway), follow me on Twitter (@thenarrowgate4), and on Instagram (thenarrowgateway4). Engage, engage, engage. Listen to the interviews, read the blogs, share and re-share, tweet and retweet (Do be patient with me though, as I build the website. I will let you know when it’s fully up and running).
I look forward to getting to know you better. Keep truth-seeking.
Yours in truth-telling,
Toyin
Toyin is a writer, blogger, vlogger, and all round truth-seeker and truth-teller. She is the founder of The Narrow Gateway, which is a platform for truth-seekers and truth-tellers to explore and engage with various daily realities that ordinary people like you and I encounter, after which we ask ourselves, WOLS? “What’s Our Lord Sayin’?” So that we may know and share the truth and the truth may make us free to walk in the glorious liberty for which Christ set us free, fully expressing the gifts and callings that He has assigned to us, by which souls can be saved.
Toyin is wife to Fiyin, and mama of two testimony toddlers, also fondly known to her as her Sunshinebabies. Toyin and her family live in Lagos, Nigeria. Toyin is a commercial lawyer by profession.
The Narrow Gateway 