Damilare Adedeji Shares His Growth Story #100DaysOfGrowth

Entry 22 by Damilare Joseph Adedeji (Twitter: @dami_maverick)
 

“It’s never long distance between real friends” — Sebastian

While those words sound like the deep musings of the animated crab in the Disney classic “Little Mermaid”, they were spoken by a seasoned German footballer to his friend and teammate on his departure to the soccer shores of England. They are the words that resonate in my heart even as I pick my pen to document a snapshot of my journey of growth and the discovery of myself.

All at once I am inundated with thoughts that spiral in and out of my cranium. My head twirls and swirls as I try to churn out my experience as simply and as honestly as I can. So of what relevance are the beginning words of this piece to the 100 days of growth project? Well to me they have a spiritual connotation.

As I pondered on this tweet, a revelation struck me like lightning from Thor’s Mjolnir. I realized something that I had held on to as a form of mental assent but which had not seeped through the cracks of logic into the bowels of my heart.

It was this: I had a concept of God that was afar of. One that could not be approached, whose throne was lined with booby traps and puzzles. He was a God who had to be bribed or cajoled into blessing me. However Bastian’s quote reminded me that there was no distance between myself and God. All perceived gaps had been bridged, all illusory potholes had been leveled up by Christ.

For so long my idea of God was of a shriveled up old man in the cloud, suffering from schizophrenia and with a penchant for striking out his enemies like flies. I had always called Him Father in prayer but that was more out of rote obedience then childlike faith. To me there was a great chasm, an ever widening divide which I had to bridge with my own efforts and by my blood and sweat. This ideology was fueled by own ever increasing desire for approval (This is a story for another day).

The reality of life however is this that God is ever present in our times of need and even in our greed. He never leaves nor forsakes us. He is ever near. In fact nearness doesn’t quite cut it. There are probably no words to describe because I soon discovered through interaction with teachers like Pastor Femi of The Haven Christian Centre and Brother Abraham that I was just as God was.

He was and is closer than I could imagine. He was closer to me than the very skin on me, closer still than the substance from which my soul and bones were made of. The truth perfectly whelmed me. It left me with the realization that I was one approved of GOD not by my works but by the offering of Christ. God wasn’t afar of, aloof or austere. He had, through Christ, made me His tabernacle.

There are many things one could glean from this. The fact there is no longer any condemnation because of our location in Christ. Or the truth of our eternal life by the offering of Jesus!

Let me stop here. To be honest it feels like I just started this journey and the road ahead is filled with delight and wonder.