This Thing Called Justice
This past Monday I got my final dose of the Moderna Vaccine and I am thrilled to be fully “#Vaxxed”. Yup, that’s a new urban slang for being fully vaccinated. It is so cute how we form words so quickly. I just hope I don’t get bored with it anytime soon. Like “Pivoting” being used so much during this pandemic. I honestly thought I’d pass out if I heard that word one more time but I haven’t yet. Almost 24 hours after my vaccine shot, I felt the anger of my body rejecting the antigens deposited in it. My goodness! I thought it was going to be an easy breezy one like the first dose but nah! I felt all the adverse/side effects and I have to tell you it was not a pretty experience. Luckily it only lasted for about 48 hours and I was back to form like nothing happened. I am still grateful and I encourage everyone to get the vaccine so we can all be safe.
During my grueling 48 hours of chills, fever, nausea, headaches and body aches (those were all the side effects I experienced), I had a chance to lay in my couch for a moment and catch up on the news. Honestly, there is something about laying in couches that doesn’t jive with my being so I don’t do it. Maybe I don’t have the right couch for relaxation but I just don’t like to lie down on a couch. I know, I’m kinda odd about certain things but that’s OK. Once you get to understand my personality a bit, you’ll be just fine hanging around me. It just happened that the very moment I turned on the TV was the breaking news everyone was waiting for - the verdict in the trial of Mr. Derek Chauvin for the death of Mr. George Floyd. I joined the world in waiting for it too and in a few minutes, the verdict was read. I didn’t have any butterflies in my stomach as most people did - a part of me knew he would be convicted, another part of me was afraid there would be a mistrial and then chaos would erupt again. I hate chaos and violence.
Truth be told that fighting, rioting and protesting is exhausting. Most people like myself look forward to a day when we can all co-exist peacefully and happily just as God designed for us to be. What struck me following the verdict was one young woman who cried bitterly. She was being interviewed and she said that “it doesn’t even feel like justice. It’s painful”. I think I understood what she meant because I felt the same way too. Justice cuts at both ends - the family of the victim will forever live with their loss and almost a $35 million dollar settlement, and the convicted man’s family will also have to live with their loss. Justice creates 2 losses, whether we like to accept it or not. The reality of this situation is that, one case has been solved and even before the trial ended, another one has erupted. This seems to be a never-ending cycle of pain after pain. It’s scary to think we might spend the rest of our days on earth, protesting and fighting for justice. It’s like an evil yoke that the adversary is hanging on our necks. That cloud of darkness covering the black community which causes other races to treat us illy has to be dealt with. What will truly feel like justice is the world never witnessing such atrocities against blacks anywhere in the world.
While JUSTICE sounds like a word of relief and fairness, it’s only used when something bad has happened to someone and the culprit has been punished. Now, that ‘bad thing’ is what we don’t want happening to anyone and we need to pray against it from ever happening again. This is just a step to right some wrongs and I pray that it will be a step to stopping wrongs from happening entirely.
I encourage you to add this to your daily prayer and intercede for minority communities around the world. That the Lord will put a mark of exemption from all forms of evil upon our lives. May the Lord bless you and keep you in all your endeavors this week.
XO,
Lady Abena.
Nponda’s Prayer Journey
Hello, my name is Nponda Nadjombe, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank every person reading this blog. I also thank the Lord Jesus Christ for the privilege to share with you all on how I started my prayer journey. A little background about me. I am originally from Togo, located in West Africa. I was born into a Christian family, and I am fortunate enough that my parents were Christians before they gave birth to me. So, I can say that I have been grounded in the Lord my entire life. My father played a huge role in that. Just FYI, ‘Nponda’ in my native language means El-Shaddai, so every time you say my name, you are calling the power of God all over me :). I currently live in Minneapolis, MN and I am pursuing a Doctorate in Occupational Therapy at the University of Minnesota.
I love to pray. At one point in my life, I considered prayer as being one of my favorite hobbies. My father highly influenced my interest in Prayer. Growing up, my Dad always woke up at midnight to pray. As a young girl in her prime who would rather enjoy her sleep and snooze, I couldn’t understand why he will put himself through that. I was quite fascinated to the point that I started joining him in prayer sometimes. When I was around 18 years old, something significant happened in my life. I had a group of friends, all girls, and we started to deliberate on the awesomeness of this God that we serve. During one of our discussions, we read and talked about Moses and his intimate relationship with God and we eagerly desired that kind of relationship. We started praying and fasting regularly, asking God to give us more of Him. Through our church, we got a chance to go to a youth convention and it was during one of our prayers before bedtime at the convention that we encountered the Holy spirit. He literally showed up and we were all slayed under His power. I guess we had prayed together so much so that it created an altar that opened the portal for the Holy Spirit to start flowing whenever we were together in prayer. It was crazy scary. Just picture a group of teenagers manifesting under the power of the Holy Spirit for the first time?
Unfortunately for us, the Pastor of our church at that time on hearing reports of what had happened to us, could not discern and he told us it was the devil manifesting instead. He then proceeded to break up our prayer group. My Dad being a God-fearing man and an Evangelist himself, encouraged us and even further took me and another girl in the group, Cecile, to a prayer camp to stay secluded for a week and truly inquire from the Lord on what His purposes were for us. During our time there, Cecile, who was the main one who seemed to have powerfully connected with the Holy Spirit than me, received a message from the Lord. She reported that God was not happy about the fact that His presence was compared or given to the devil. So, we both fasted some more and repented. Cecile also inquired about my purpose from the Lord and the Lord told her that I was just in training in getting to know Him. Three (3) days later, we left the prayer camp, returned home and we continued to pray and fast on our journey to carry the presence of God.
My prayer was mainly focused on moving from a “trainee” to really understanding the fullness of God. Consistent prayer started opening my spirit up to powerful and vivid dreams and visions that seem to play out in the physical realm. One of those dreams was when I had to come to the United States for school. God revealed the names of my host family and even their faces, long before the school connected with them. These are usually random searches on the part of the school for a family for an international student like myself, but the result their search yielded was the exact family God had shown me in my vision.
There have been so many other encounters since and one of them included my baptism of the Holy spirit, which was actually with me alone in my closet. I sometimes tried to follow the masses on different prayer strategies and platforms but God will distinctively speak to me to get back to a place of one-on-one prayer with Him. I’d like to conclude that the Holy Spirit is the one who guides your prayer life as you consistently spend time to seek the face of God. Once you have the desire and hunger to pursue Him, He will manifest Himself through you. I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit alone in my closet but that can be different for someone else. The key is for you to consistently stay in prayer. You will be transformed through prayer and the presence of God will come. No need to copycat others or duplicate what someone else is doing. Stay on effective prayer and God will direct you on how He wants to communicate with you.
I hope this encourages you to not be frustrated with your prayer life but instead, make it an enjoyable time of intimacy with God.
Be blessed and stay safe this week and let prayer guide you into all things.
XO,
Nponda Nadjombe.
Holy Anger
The first time I heard "Holy” placed in front of anything with a negative connotation was in mid August of 2020 when a friend of mine, Mary-Anne, woke me up around 3am in the morning because she had awoken out of a dream about me and she said it was so good that she had a “Holy Jealousy” towards me. Yes, “Holy Jealousy”. She noticed I couldn’t relate to the term so she further explained that it’s jealousy but in a Godly way. Lately, I have been hearing a lot about “Holy” this or that and one of them that peaked my attention was “Holy Anger”. I understood this term to be an anger that arises out of injustice or some sin towards you or others. I think it’s anger that emanates from a deeper core of your faith when something is not done right or done unfairly.
I was referred to Matthew 21:12-13 (ESV), “when Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’ “. In these verses, I could sense the anger of Jesus - it was a Holy Anger that resulted from the desecration of the house of God. It was a justified anger which resulted in effecting the right change in the temple of God.
I bring this further down to our daily lives - the enemy is constantly poking at our doors of destiny. I don’t know what has gone wrong in your life, what delays you are experiencing in your destiny but that should arouse a Holy Anger in you to stand and fight the enemy. God revealed to us through the prophet Jeremiah that His plans for us are good, to prosper us and to give us hope for a future. Thus, anything that does not reveal these good plans in your life should anger you enough to stand and claim your rightful place in God’s Kingdom. The days of sitting back and watching life unfold are over. This is the season where the spirit of God has come to dwell with His people. Therefore, whatever does not belong in your life, whatever was due you that has been stolen or lost, anything you desire to live in peace and prosperity that the enemy has blocked, be angered enough to engage in spiritual warfare to see it move. Satan and his crew are already angered enough at your very existence and will stop at nothing to see that you are destroyed - just return a favor to them.
Jesus was so passionate about the things of His father, so much that he went ‘bonkers’ on seeing people defaming His temple. If you are passionate about the things that God has unveiled for your life, and you desire to see them come true for you, then let a Holy Anger erupt through you so you can claim back your “temple” as Jesus did.
Every Thursday night from 10pm to 11pm EST, New York time, a group of ladies from all over the world, join to pray via zoom. It is a prayer that is born out of a Holy Anger to see the right hand of God in our lives. I invite you to join us via Zoom ID: 984 740 1223 Password 14801.
May the hand of God move in your life this week and perfect everything that concerns you. May He reveal areas in your life that you need to engage the Holy Spirit on to see the victorious hand of God. May His goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life. Amen.
XO,
Lady Abena.