I've Stopped Running.. Now What?

Hi Guys,

My sincere apologies for not posting anything last week. It was such a busy week to say the least, deadlines to meet, coupled with a beautiful wedding to attend. The coming weeks are about to get busier. #sighhhh!  Can I just take a moment to say a MASSIVE thank you to every one that has sent me a message about the impact of my last two posts! Some of your messages have made me cry *good tears of course* LOL. Can I be honest?  All of last week I felt soooo overwhelmed because I didn’t expect such responses. In fact, I didn’t start my blog to talk about what I have been talking about. My friend and I were laughing about the direction this blog has taken because I just wanted to speak about men, love, relationships, you know, the usual girly woes but all I can say is as the Holy Spirit leads, I will follow.

So to the topic at hand. You have stopped running; you’ve surrendered now what? I remember when I decided to surrender and stop running, it was time for me to get intentional about developing a relationship with God. Let me be the first to tell you, getting to know God requires time, this journey is not for the lazy.

Here is how I went about it:

First Things First

I was desperate for Him. I had no one or nowhere to turn to but God.

Before you begin your journey towards a relationship with God, you have to be desperate and have no other alternatives. Even Jesus, when He taught His first sermon, the first thing he mentioned in the Beatitudes was that we need to come to a realisation that we NEED God. Matthew 5:3

I believe God responds when we make Him our only option and realize we NEED Him. Till then you will keep dipping in and out of a relationship with Him. Joyce Meyer once said ‘You are as close to God as YOU want to be’ I totally agree because as you embark on your journey, you will discover this to be a fact. I repeat this journey is NOT for the lazy.

Have A Desire. Set a Goal

So I had a goal, not only did I want to know more about God, I wanted to be able to hear Him speak to me and lead me through His Holy Spirit. My mum once told me of how she was combing her hair and the Holy Spirit told her there was a hair out of place. At the time I rolled my eyes and thought ‘yeah, sure, a whole God, cares about the one hair that was out of place’. I wasn’t convinced. However I now desired that type of relationship with God. I wanted the Holy Spirit to be my BEST friend.

Get Intentional

I remember getting practical. I sat and wrote down what it meant to be in a great and fulfilling relationship and I stuck it on my bedroom wall. I came up with the fact that God was going to be my MAN. For our relationship to work I had to make spending time with Him my priority.  I had to put Him first before anything or anyone else. I had to communicate with Him. I had to keep it real with Him. I had to tell Him how I felt about everything. I was once in a relationship with a guy I will call Mr Amazing. For the first 2 months of our relationship, we spoke every single day. Day and night. Despite our busy schedules we always made time to communicate, as a result we became inseparable. I decided that this was how my relationship with God would be.

Make It Happen

So I put all of the above into action. Every morning I woke up I had me and God time. At first I didn’t know how to spend time with God. I struggled. So I went online and I researched how to spend time with God. My amazing big sis/mentor Ola had sent me Heather Lindsey’s blog and I came across a post on spending time with God. Although it helped there were days where I felt like I was being religious and I got frustrated because i was trying to do it EXACTLY how Heather had recommended. What I really needed to do was find my own way of spending time with Him. Rather than trying to have the perfect formula or being like anyone else, I did what worked for me. Some mornings I listened to worship, other mornings I prayed, other mornings I just spoke in tongues, some days I read my bible or simply listened to a sermon.  I would mix and match, on some occasions do it all. I had variety. There was nothing monotonous about my relationship with my MAN. The more time I spent with God, the more I had a desire to keep seeking Him.  What started as 10mins each morning or during the day, gradually grew to hours.  There are two things I wouldn’t go with out : listening to worship and then reading my bible. I would recommend starting at John, reading a chapter a day. Find a translation you can understand, I personally love NLT. Listening to worship and reading the word of God feeds the Holy Spirit living inside of you.

The Holy Spirit. My Lover and My BOSS

If you haven’t already I would highly recommend reading ‘Good Morning Holy Spirit’ by Benny Hinn. It’s an amazing book. It helped me understand who the Holy Spirit was. I will shout this all day, everyday: THE HOLYSPIRIT makes the difference! There is no way you can have a relationship with God or live a successful Christian life without the HolySpirit. It is impossible. The Holy Spirit is not a thing, but a person. He is not your conscience but the spirit of God, living in you. You need to cultivate a relationship with Him by spending time with Him. When you spend time with Him, you will feel His presence. Speak to Him, He listens and eventually you will hear Him speaking. Time won’t allow me so maybe ill do a separate post on the Holy Spirit.  He is an invaluable asset for every Christian.  The reason why many Christians get tired in their Christian walk and easily fall into sin is because they have neglected the importance of having a close relationship with the Holy Spirit. He is a perfect gentleman so He will never impose Himself on you until you give Him the permission to take the lead.

Changes

The more time you spend with the Holy Spirit, the more changes you will begin to see. He changes your sinful desires and you will begin to see good fruits.  Read Galatians 5:16-25. For me in particular I was addicted to certain things but the more time I spent with the Holy Spirit, the more I began to notice these desires had automatically disappeared. I became a more peaceful, loving, gentle and patient person.

Heart Check

Make sure you are seeking God for the right reasons. God had to expose my hidden intentions to me. (Psalm 139:23-24 will forever be my prayer) Like I mentioned in my last post, heartbreak drove me to God. So I was seeking God because He was soothing my wounded heart but the moment my past came knocking on the door of my heart I put God aside. The Holy Spirit was hurt (yes He has feelings too) He showed me that I couldn’t seek God for what He could do for me but simply for who He is. He also let me know that I couldn’t use Him.

Consistency

The more time I spent with the Holy Spirit the more I saw Him strip me of everything that wasn’t like Him and the more He conformed me to the image of Christ. But I got complacent and inconsistent. I started to depend on my amazing quiet time from yesterday and negated the fact that I could not depend on those experiences but each day had to be a fresh encounter with God. Ill put it this way. When you are in a relationship and you speak to your man everyday, the days you don’t speak you start to feel distant and the longer you prolong your communication you begin to resent him even if he hasn’t done anything wrong. You know you should call him but you just don’t. That’s exactly how it works with God and it is dangerous grounds because it leads to backsliding and eventually falling into sin. I spoke in my last post about having dip backs since I rededicated my life to God. This was why. I began to dip back to the world and my past because I had stopped spending time with God the way I used to and I had lost a desire to do so. The things He had delivered me from I found myself craving. I was spending less time with God so I became lonely. When you find yourself getting lonely, or desiring the things you know you shouldn’t, entertaining that past you know you should really cut off and keep it moving, It’s a sign. A sign that there is distance between you and the Holy Spirit. I had to pause and restore back to factory setting. I prayed to God for a fresh desire to seek Him, and then I became intentional about seeking Him again.

Trust me you will go in circular motion, back and forth if for one second you trivialize or become too comfortable with making the time to have genuine fellowship with God. It’s a process. At first it will seem long and hard. There will be days where you feel God’s presence so strongly; some days you will feel nothing. Regardless of what or how you feel spend time with Him.

I am NOT a morning person so at first my journey to work or when i got back home was my ‘me and God' time. However God desires to be FIRST before anything else. Gradually I started to make an effort to wake up early. It was hard but I would ask the Holy Spirit to wake me up the next morning and He would.  If you miss a day like I often do, don’t worry or feel guilty. Remember it’s a relationship; it’s not every day you feel like speaking to your man but you know you should. Don’t be religious about it. Ask God for the grace to seek and love Him for who He is. I am where I am now because I fought to get to this point. The devil will use everything and anything to fight your quiet time because he understands the importance of it. Be determined that no matter what you will spend time with God.

My relationship with God is so precious to me; it is the best relationship I have ever been in. He satisfies me like no one else can, He tells me off, He wipes my tears, He laughs with me and He loves on me.  To be honest I don’t know how anyone can function without a relationship with Him. O yeah, He keeps me sane. *laughs*

So thats all for today..

If you have the following, hit me up, i don't bite.. 

Instagram : @MsCoveyLaw

Twitter : @MsCoveyLaw

Thank you so much for reading..

Till the next post…

Covey x x

The Runaway Bride.. Pt 2

Hiiiiiiii Guys,

Thank you all so much for reading ‘The Runaway Bride pt 1’. I really do appreciate all the love. (For those who haven’t read it yet this post will make no sense so check it out!)

Okay, so I’ve been receiving a few messages along these lines ‘ I can’t believe how brave you are’, ‘Your post was so open and transparent’. I’m here thinking ‘I haven’t even gotten to the juicy part yet.’ LOL.  Let me tell you why I am keeping it 100. One of my spiritual mentors Pastor Ope once told me ‘ the power of sin lies in secrecy’. I truly believe that whatever you keep hidden still has power over you. Also Romans 8:1 [NLT] says 

‘so now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.’ 

I believe that Christ has forgiven me of all my sins; I feel no guilt for my past mistakes hence I can openly share them.  I really believe that the world is looking for Christians they can relate and identify with. Your testimony might give someone the hope that they too can be redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus, no matter WHAT!  Some Christians act like they got saved at age 11, were baptized in the Holy Spirit at age 12 and have been on fire for Christ ever since. They portray this unattainable image of perfection and their demeanor alone is condemning.  Romans 3:23 [NLT] plainly states 

‘For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard’.  

When I first got saved, I was soooo self-righteous, judgmental and would instantly condemn anyone I saw living in sin. * laughs *  how foolish! When I fell into sin myself it was definitely a humbling process. Now when self-righteousness tries to creep up on me, I instantly remind myself of Ephesians 2: 8 [NLT] which says

‘God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.’

So for my saved and sanctified Christian brothers and sisters reading this post, I challenge you to prayerfully share your testimony of salvation and keep it REAL. Obviously apply wisdom. God knows I am not going to share every minute detail of my past on this blog. LOOOOOL * somebody shout THANK YOU JESUS FOR YOUR SAVING GRACE *  Amen!

Mini sermon over, now back to where we left off… Yes, so I was in a relationship, mind you this guy was nothing short of AMAZING but I broke up with him before I left London for my first year at Uni. Rather than finding a church on campus, I joined the pole dancing society. Don’t get me wrong pole dancing is an amazing SPORT which requires sheer skills and talent. But clearly you can see where my priorities were. Slowly but surely I grew cold. I started drinking, which seemed harmless at first but proved to be dangerous because when I drank I was no longer in control of myself. I refer to this part of my life as the ‘YOLO’ season. I had lost all regard for God. I went deeper into to sin than I could have ever imagined and I decided that there was no point going back. I got comfortable in my sin and in a lifestyle that was displeasing to God. As the devil would have it I fell in ‘love' or what i thought was 'love'. Although the situation (I dear not call it a relationship) was dysfunctional, to me it was perfect and even though my life seemed perfect I felt SOOOOO empty. 

God began pursing me. I remember on my trips back to London I would have these random conversations with one of my big brothers from my church. He could see how I was living, in fact the whole world could and I cared less, but he never once judged, rebuked or bombard me with how much of a sinner I was. Rather he would remind me that God loved me and that He still cared about me. I would laugh, stretch out my hands as wide as I could and reply ‘You don’t get it, God is here and I’m here’. Emphasizing on how far I had ran from God. Little did he know that after EVERY conversation I would go upstairs and cry myself to sleep because I knew God was tugging at my heart begging me to come home. I resisted, because I was way too comfortable in my sin and giving my heart to Him meant I would have to leave the situation I was in. That I wasn’t ready to do.  Then God sent one of my sisters from church to me, and she would say to me ‘I don’t know why but I really feel like God is telling me to send this to you’. It was always a sermon that was convicting and almost warning me of my sin. At one point I thought this girl must be a witch, why on earth is she sending this stuff to me. God was pursing me HARD.

I persistently and stubbornly resisted because I was not willing to let go of my ‘situation’. Nothing, I repeat nothing could prepare me of how the situation would finally end. I was BROKEN. To be perfectly honest I wanted to die, it seems so extreme now but that is how I felt. I cried for days, in fact I wept. I stopped eating; I deleted my instagram and twitter account. I changed my number. I locked myself in my room and just cried for days on end. However something extraordinary, beyond my human comprehension happened. I woke up one day getting ready to cry as usual * my morning routine* but I was interrupted by a call, it wasn’t what I was expecting and I was devastated further, as I opened my mouth to cry I just started praying in tongues. Where from and how i don't know. I got up from my bed and started pacing up an down my room just praying in tongues. I felt like i was in some sort of a fight.  At that very moment I could feel something I can only describe as electrical currents just circulating my entire body. All of a sudden I felt a peace and a calmness that I have never in my life felt before, I can only explain it as Philippians 4: 7 which describes a peace that passes all human understanding. At that very moment I felt as though God was holding my heart in the palm of His hands. Then I grabbed my laptop went on to Youtube and created a worship playlist and began crying but this time I wasn’t crying out of pain.  As the days followed I would pick up my bible and every scripture I read was God telling me He was with me.  He began to show me through His word that He understood everything that was happening. He would send me to listen to particular songs and sermons.  Then randomly a friend of mine that I hadn’t spoken to in months, who had no clue what was happening with me called me and said ‘I feel God telling me to send you this scripture, I don’t know why’.  It was Isaiah 41:8-15. At that very moment I KNEW God was mindful of me, I was assured of His redeeming love.

I stayed secluded and spent my time with God, just praying, worshiping, reading my bible and listening to sermons. I had literally cut out the rest of the world and the only time I went out was to go to church. I joined the choir. I fell in love with Christ again and He gave me a reason to live and fight for my destiny that the devil wanted to destroy. My pain drove me to the feet of Jesus. I became desperate for Him, FINALLY the chase was over. I rededicated my life to JESUS CHRIST and I made a decision on 29^th of October 2012 that there was no going back for me.  Since then I have had minor dip backs (I’ll explain later) but thus far it has been such a phenomenal journey.  I have actively been working on my relationship with God and I can say with every fiber in my body that His LOVE has changed my life completely. Every day He blows me away through the things He shows me and says to me. I could go on and on but His love is simply indescribable.

So if you are reading this post and deep down you know you are not where you used to be in God, you are running away from Him like I was, I am begging you to surrender your all to God, confess your sins and He will forgive you.  1 John 1:9 [NLT] says 

‘But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.’

Don’t wait before it’s too late. God is waiting, He is longing for you to come home.  Like my big brother told me, He loves you and He cares about you wayyyyyyy too much to give up on you.  And please don’t let the devil lie to you and tell you are not good enough or that you need to change and stop your sin before God will accept you. What a LIE!! You don’t have to do ANYTHING but surrender and confess your sins; in your own power you cannot stop sinning. God wants to change your desires; he wants to help you stop sinning. Come as you are you because you are the perfect candidate.

Or if you are reading this and you are frustrated with God because you have been calling out to Him and you feel like he is not interested in you or listening to you, this is for you. Isaiah 59: 1-2 says 1 ‘Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you,
nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call .2 It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore.’  But you can still cry out to Him, get desperate, confess your sin and He will listen to you.  As Jeremiah 29: 13 says  

‘If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me’.

Lastly to the ‘Sunday Christian’ reading this post, God is challenging you to be consistent with Him. He is challenging you to dare to have a relationship with Him. He wants all of you. He wants full access to your life. He is daring you to surrender your all to Him and to make Him the priority of your life. Revelations 3:16 says 

‘But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth’.  Trust me having a relationship with the Holy Spirit will change your life.

God is soooooooooooooooooo in love with you, like my spiritual mentor Pastor Ope always tells me, NEVER forget that!

Thank you sooooo much for reading guys; I can’t wait till the next post.

Covey xx

The Runaway Bride.. Pt 1

As I sit on my train slightly annoyed at having to change trains (the Southestern service is the worst service known to man *rollseyes*)  I reflect on the response from my first ‘welcome’ post, particularly on a Facebook private message I received. Fighting back the tears, it was a confirmation of how far God has brought me and how there is a purpose for this blog and my life as a whole. I know I promised my Facebook family that my first post would be on my encounters with ‘Christian Brothers’ however I feel God leading me elsewhere. So here goes, it’s going to be a long one, get comfortable as I tell you about my greatest love.

Ladies if you have ever had an overzealous brother persistently hollering at you, but simply not being interested, then finally giving in, you will understand my journey to salvation. I wont say God was overzealous but He sure was persistent in pursuing me, however I played hard to get and spent most of my time running from Him. It was only recently that I gave in and surrendered my life to Him. Let me not pretend, it’s a daily surrender.

I was born in the church. Those that know me know that my mum is a Pastor.  A fact I bitterly resented. Going to church was not optional it was by force. Early morning prayers and devotionals were mandatory. So I went to church but I didn’t know God. I knew bible scriptures, but they had no meaning to me. I sang in the choir, I was attendee of the year at EVERY gospel event but it was all activity, no relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I was a good girl, your perfect church girl. But as I grew older I began to resent God, Christians and Christianity as a whole. Why? A lot of things were happening to me that I couldn’t explain. Things happening at home that were painful for me to deal with or understand. So I began to question God’s existence. If this God was real then WHY was He allowing all these bad things happen to me?

*Lets pause* The devil will always try and cause you to doubt Gods existence. He will use this to convince you that God doesn’t love or care about you. After all if He did, surely He would save you.

So I did the obvious. I still went to church but I rebelled. I started searching for love from people, especially guys. At this stage I was in college, feeling like a spice because all of a sudden guys began to notice me. Every one wanted a piece of Covey, so I entertained every guy that was checking for me. All the while God was pursing me, constantly trying to reach out to me but I just wasn’t interested. I was living my life as I pleased. I wasn’t sleeping around or drinking, none of that I was too scared. Things at home got worst, life at home became unbearable. I slipped into a state of depression. I stopped going to college. At this point I was desperate, something had to happen and happen fast. * cuts out all the long winded details * Randomly I got  invited to a youth conference called Restoration and I attended it with my bestfriend, before I knew it I was on my knees crying out, asking God to forgive me and come into my life.  Not me alone but my bestie got saved. I started reading my bible again; this time the words became life to me. I became thirsty for God and the more I spent time with Him the more I was satisfied. It was amazing.  Me and my bestie would encourage each other, everyday we would pray with each other on the phone. We went from raving together to joining Christian fellowships together. We were on fire for God. At that time getting saved was the new hype so being a Christian was easy. 

Now I was a certified Christian. In fact I was a sister of Jesus. I was going around like an apostle to the nations. I was that certified. But there was this guy, a Christian brother. My lord he was HOTTTT. My type on every level.  I knew he was interested so I kept it cool. One day he invited me to his house to come and help him prepare the poem he was going to minister at church. Being the caring sister that I was, I went. Before you know it we were playing, then playing turned to kissing and then ayyyyyyyyy lets just say the flesh took over.  Although we didn’t have sex, at that moment I felt empty, something had left me, the absence of that something made me weep from his house to my house. I went home in tears, when my mum asked what was wrong, i said i had lost my oyster. Wait! I just lied and i felt perfectly fine. I knew something was missing. I now understand that something to be a someone. The Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:19 – 20 [NLT]

19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

My relationship with God changed. I was still a Christian but I went back to being a ‘Sunday’ Christian. Reading my bible was long. I was cold one day hot another. I just couldn’t consistently live holy. By this time I was back in another relationship and God was no longer my priority. 

Ill stop there, for now if not you might fall asleep on me. LOL! Stay tuned for part 2.

Till Next Post..

Covey x x

Allow Me To Introduce My Self….

Finally, I am doing the damn thing!!

First things first, I salute you fellow bloggers. This is such a long process, attempting to sort out a layout, the template, font size.. *Urghhh* Completely long. I am such a perfectionist but my desire to start this blog is far greater than waiting for it to look perfect. 

So welcome. I pray this post meets you well. For so long I have wanted to blog but unfortunately I am the queen of procrastination. Okay, let me be honest, I had a blog, an anonymous blog. *Laughs shamefully*.  The name of the blog was so depressing; I dare not mention it here. Before now, my Facebook status served as a platform for me to just express myself, my thoughts but mostly share whatever God was doing in my life. Little did I know that people were watching, reading and being encouraged. How amazing! After much persuasion, encouragement but most importantly a message from a profound Man of God *Thank you Evangelist Banji*, I decided it was time to just do the damn thing.. *shout out to my mentor and big sis Ola Akin for this phrase* 

 I am in my early 20′s. Young, single, ambitious and passionately in love with Jesus. (no I am not advertising my singleness, I just think it is relevant to note) LOL! I plan on sharing with you what ever God lays on my heart and lately there has been a lot. I plan on sharing my greatest love, my aspirations, my biggest struggles, my hurts, the things that grieve my heart, the things that make me roll with uncontrollable laughter, the things that I have experienced in life and how they have made and molded me into the woman that I am today. I plan on sharing with you, my personal experiences and I promise not to hold back on my outspoken opinions. I have always been the one that says out loud what everyone else is thinking, so be prepared.  Thus far, i have been on an amazing journey of self-discovery, womanhood and fulfilling purpose. So as you accompany me on this journey I pray that first and foremost you gain something new and refreshing every time you visit this blog. I pray that you are encouraged, challenged, inspired and empowered. Which ever the case may be. 

Please feel free to leave a comment, respond and tell me exactly what you think. Interaction is key. 

Lastly I simply hope you enjoy the ride.

*skips with excitement* 

Till next time…..

Covey x