Recently Pastor Simeon Obayo gave this testimony to a group of Pastors:
“When I was 7 years old my mother sent me to school. She could not afford a uniform so I went to school without one. All I had was a torn shirt and a pair of ripped shorts that showed my bare buttocks to the whole world. Every Wednesday we stood for inspection. Wednesday was my day! It was the day I was caned in front of the whole class for not having a uniform. Week after week I was caned, but I came to school anyway. I learned to take it like a man! I would pull my shoulders back and refuse to cry, so they caned me harder. When I came home with welts on my back my mother could only hug me and pray for me. We had no other choice.
I now look back on those days as the days when the Lord put strength in my soul to endure the trials of life and never give up. That is the reason I am what I am today. No one ever had faith in me, but I never gave up. No one ever helped me, so I helped myself. I showed up and refused to go away, so they gave me jobs. I went places without money and I learned that God always makes a way. I was a poor boy who never had shoes until he was 19, but today I am a pastor and a Bishop over many Churches. Faith for me was something that made me persevere and dare to do the impossible, a gift from God that has given me courage through my entire life”.
Lord help us to have a new perspective on the trials and hardship of our lives. Deliver us from our fears and our grumbling. Help us to know and believe that our trials only come to make us strong.
James 1:2-4
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Richard