A friend gave me a story of a man who proceeded to choose a vacation window and paid for all vacation expenses prior to seeking a leave approval from his boss. Contrary to his expectation, his boss refused to approve a leave for him within the vacation window he had chosen and paid for. The young man called the attention of his boss to the fact that he had already picked his vacation destination and all expenses had been paid. Furthermore, he labeled his boss as being insensitive and foolishly flouted his boss’s decision and proceeded on the vacation. This further infuriated his boss who felt slighted at his subordinate’s presumption and gross disrespect of his person, office and the institution.   The young man was consequently fired for being absent without a leave approval.

Ideally, the young man should have sought his boss’s approval before making his vacation plans. This is because, as a professional, you’re primarily answerable to your boss or supervisor. To a very large extent, your level of obedience and loyalty go a very long way in determining how much you rise in the professional cadre.

The scenario described above is quite similar to what we sometimes do as Christians. We make up our minds to accomplish a task and we use all our human discretion to make out all the plans we think are necessary, then we go to God for approval. When he doesn’t give the approval we expect, then we begin to doubt His integrity and faithfulness. For instance a person gets set for a journey without initially consulting God for an approval to proceed, then when he is about to commence the journey, he ask God for a safe trip. If something goes wrong while on the journey, we begin to doubt God’s credibility. Another instance is when a person gets wealthy by cutting corners and feels that using such funds to support church events is tantamount to bribing your way through to God. Or a person who consciously and consistently eat a very bad diet and expects to live in divine health. This will all back fire. “God is not mocked, whatever you sow you will reap (Gal.6:7)”.

Ideally, whatever we do as Christians should always start and end with God. He loves us so much that he wants us to take an approval from him before we make every move of our lives, from the least to the greatest (1Cor.10:31 and Col.3:17). As our maker, Lord and savior his integrity is always at stake so he jealously protects it by nature.  In other words, He sees his glory in our lives and he’ll want our every step to transmit this glory in return (1Cor.6:19-20).

To be able to effectively seek and take approvals from him we must know the following:

• Know God for who He is (Heb. 11:6, James 1:17, 1Tim.1:17, 1Tim.6:16).

• Know that God Loves you and has a perfect plan for you (John 3:16, Jer.29:11).

• Know yourself exactly as God knows you (Col.2:10, Eph.2:10)

• Know how to love your neighbor. This results as an automatic consequence of loving God and yourself (Eph. 5:1-2, 2Cor.5:14-15)

• Know that every action you take has a consequence, good or bad (Gal.6:7).

“I am God, your God, who teaches you how to live right and well.  I show you what to do, where to go. If you had listened all along to what I told you, your life would have flowed full like a river,  blessings rolling in like waves from the sea.” Isaiah 48:17b-18 (The Message).

-Emeka Ofia